Death's Door
by Araceil
Summary: One glance was all it took. It may have been ten years, but Duo would know Solo anywhere, at any time. Now he just has to convince the stubborn wizard to let him help. Master of Death? Sorry Snake Face, the Shinigami has no master. 02/HP, 04/03
1. Chapter 1

_One glance was all it took. It may have been ten years, but Duo would know Solo anywhere, at any time. Now he just has to convince the stubborn wizard to let him help. Master of Death? Sorry Snake Face, the Shinigami has no master._ 02/HP, 04/03

 _ **000**_

 **Chapter One**

Everything seemed fuzzy, slow. Harry and Hermione jumped to their feet and drew their wands. Many people were only just realising that something strange had happened; heads were still turning towards the silver cat as it vanished. Silence spread outwards in cold ripples from the place where the Patronus had landed. Harry's stomach clenched in horrified remembrance of a scene very much like this once upon a time ago. Then somebody screamed.

Harry and Hermione threw themselves into the panicking crowd. Guests were sprinting in all directions; many were Disapparating; the protective enchantments around The Burrow had broken.

"Ron!" Hermione called, her voice high with fear as she shoved party goers to one aside as they barged into her. "Ron, where are you?"

As they pushed their way across the dance floor, Harry saw cloaked and masked figures appearing in the crowd; then he saw Lupin and Tonks, their wands raised, and heard both of them shout ' _Protego!_ ', a cry that was echoed on all sides –

"Ron! Ron!" Hermione called, half sobbing as she and Harry were buffeted by terrified guests; Harry seized her hand to make sure they weren't separated as a streak of light whizzed over their heads, whether a protective charm or something more sinister he did not know, he tightened his grip on his wand –

And then Ron was there. He caught hold of Hermione's free arm and Harry felt her turn on the spot; sight and sound were extinguished as darkness pressed in upon him; all he could feel was Hermione's hand as he was squeezed through space and time, away from The Burrow, away from the descending Death Eaters, away, perhaps, from Voldemort himself...

"Where are we?" asked Ron's voice as Harry's sweaty hand tightened spasmically on the handle of his wand.

He opened his eyes. For a moment he thought they had not left the wedding after all: they still seemed to be surrounded by people.

"Tottenham Court Road," Hermione panted, side-along Apparating two adults as well as herself, was apparently strenuous. "Walk, just, walk, we need to find somewhere for you to change. Especially Harry. The Polyjuice is wearing off already," she warned as she dropped their hands and began a brisk half run half walk up the wide, dark street thronging with late-night revellers and lined with closed shops, the occasional jarringly bright lit window of a take-out restaurant, or the neon open signs of pubs and clubs. A double-decker bus rumbled past, giving Harry a quick glimpse of his changing face. He looked more like himself than the round faced 'Cousin Barney'. Even his hair was darkening past auburn to dark brown, soon it would be back to its dark inky black. A group of merry pub-goers, young ladies out on a Hen night judging by the sash and sparkly wands and pink fluffy handcuffs, ogled them as they passed; both Harry and Ron were still in dress robes.

"Hermione, we haven't got anything to change into," Ron blurted out in a hiss, as a young woman burst into raucous giggles at the sight of him, drawing stares from the other people around them.

Harry grimaced, glancing over his shoulder in paranoia, "Why didn't I make sure I had the Invisibility Cloak with me?" he growled under his breath, inwardly cursing his own stupidity. "All last year I kept it on me and – "

"Solo!" a voice shouted.

Harry felt his breath hitch for all of a second.

He glanced over his shoulder and it was the work of the last four years not to perform a full body flinch at the familiar amethyst eyes pinned to him through the crowding public.

He sped up.

"It's okay," Hermione was saying, unaware of the muggle following him, or the tension that suddenly corkscrewed up her friend's spine, she was too busy keeping her eyes on the shadows they passed. "I've got the Cloak, and I've got clothes for both of you," she said, "Just try and act naturally until – this will– "

"OI! SOLO!" the muggle shouted even louder, speeding up after them.

This time even Ron noticed, looking over his shoulder, the other two craning around to see who was shouting in their direction. The red head frowned, "Is he shouting at us?" he asked.

"No," Harry grit out, not looking as he hunched his back and skipped a pace forward.

"He's definitely looking at us," Hermione noticed worriedly.

"Solo!"

"You know him, Harry?" Ron asked warily as they kept moving.

"Don't know him," the Gryffindor confirmed shortly, lying through his teeth.

"Damnit, would you _stop_ ignoring me! Solo!"

"He's definitely shouting at you, mate," Ron said to Harry. The Gryffindor only shook his head again, and Ron nodded seriously, wheeling around and stopping, squaring himself up to his full height. He would have looked somewhat ridiculous to someone from Hogwarts who knew him, but right now, he was not a figure to be messed with standing at well over six feet tall, with surprisingly broad shoulders and a deep chest from all the training he'd been doing in the DA and for Quidditch. Hermione grabbed Harry's wrist, pulling him to a stop just behind him, not wanting to be separated. Ron folded his arms defensively as the smaller male came to a stop in front of them, a look of relief on his face as he opened his mouth, only to be cut off.

"Look mate, back off okay? You've got the wrong guy and you're making my friend uncomfortable," Ron commanded, blue eyes boring into purple.

The stranger was surprisingly small, but not thin, he had large amethyst purple eyes, with round apple cheeks, and long chestnut coloured hair in a thick braid that dropped down to mid-thigh. Wearing a leather jacket over a red T-shirt, he was quite clearly muggle.

He stared at Ron for a moment, before his eyes slid over to Harry, who was very carefully not looking at him, but at Hermione who was glancing between the two anxiously. He stared before his face broke out into a friendly smile, and he stepped back. Ron relaxed as the muggle's arms went up behind his head and he leaned back.

"Ahh-ahahah, my bad. Sorry. Seriously though, the resemblance is freaky close. Green eyes, black hair, hell, even the facial scar. Still, if you say so. Sorry about that man!" he blustered brightly.

Harry shifted uncomfortably, "That's... okay. I'm sorry I'm not who you're looking for," he managed to get out, still not looking up.

"Yeah... me too," the muggle agreed, suddenly solemn.

He didn't follow them again.

 _ **000**_

He wasn't wrong.

Duo Maxwell knew that face as well as his own.

It was older now, but there was no mistaking it. Ever. Not when it swam in front of his eyes night after wretched night when his inner demons decided to remind him of all his faults, crimes, and mistakes.

Still too thin, too pale, too _pinched_ with anxiety, anger, and helplessness. That familiar mess of inky blue-black was shorter now, but that colour wasn't something you could find even in a bottle. Those eyes though, they were what gave it away when the young man turned around, muttering something under his breath. Those blade sharp green-green eyes that glared out of a pale pinched face, looking for a threat in the darkness.

It had been _ten_ years, but Duo would know Solo anywhere in the Galaxy.

And Duo could still read him like an open book. No matter how much the green eyed boy tried to hide it, Duo knew he was in trouble with just one look at his face. He had all but worshipped the other boy back in L2, the two of them practically heading their little gang of gutter rats. Back when Solo did everything in his limited power to keep them healthy and fed, Duo chasing his heels like a loyal puppy, the two of them leading attacks on the rival street gangs to steal food, sleeping in piles of dirty clothes in the corners of warehouses and back alleys. He had that same look on his face the first time they pissed off a few of the adult cutthroats, always looking over his shoulder as he ushered their little group of five through the alleys, it was before they took in the trash heap kids and bloated their numbers into the thirties, and nearly broke poor Solo's back with the responsibility of their lives. Looking back, Duo wished to smack his seven year old self for being completely ineffective in helping his best friend, and take the green eyed child and hide him from the world he was far too good for. Looking at him now, seventeen years old, ushering another two people under his care through the streets, looking over his shoulder in much the same way, Duo wanted to break something. Preferably whoever was putting that look on his face. Because the more things changed, the more they stayed the same. And Solo was _still_ trying to protect his people.

He was determinedly not thinking about how Solo had been letting him think he was dead for the last ten years. Or what his old friend must have thought of his actions during the Colony Wars two years ago.

He hung back as the red head guided his old friend away, the three rushing a little further down the street before ducking into an alley way, it wasn't long before they surfaced again, the boys in normal clothing as opposed to those weird Lord of the Rings style fancy robes. He could still see Solo looking around, his eyes hidden behind an awful pair of glasses that did little to hide the sharpness of his gaze. They hurried down the road, ignoring a group of drunks that cat called the woman, both boys bristled, the red head shifting closer while Solo glanced their way and dismissed them entirely. Still sharp as a lazer scalpel. Those guys weren't going to do anything but shout. A complete non-threat.

The three ducked into a cafe, a dirty little greasy spoon that was mostly empty at this time of night.

Duo hauled himself onto the top of a doorway, perching upon the huge decorative relief work above so he could peer through the grubby section of window above the net curtains strung annoyingly halfway up the window. He could see the three grab a seat from where he was, a pretty waitress approaching them, he could read the girl's lips ordering three cappuchinos, and the waitress leaving.

He didn't see them coming, which was the first thing that tipped him off.

Two men, one big and burly, in clothes a little too good a quality to be fucking around in this part of town. A smaller dark man, who seemed to be sneering at what was around him. Duo shifted deeper into the shadows above the door as he watched them go into the cafe, the way they leaned towards the three at the table. How Solo's eyes followed them from under that mop of dark hair.

The waitress went over, and was waved off, much to her offence.

It all happened at once.

The two men that had just waved away the waitress moved at the same time as Solo, and Duo found himself launching himself down onto street level as the cafe windows lit up with light from what had to be beam weaponry. He shoved the door open, gun already in hand.

The big guy's head vanished in a spray of blood, bone, and grey brain matter.

A woman screamed.

Solo's face lit up with red light and the second man dropped like a puppet with his strings cut.

The room fell silent.

Big, blond, and bloody laid out on the floor in front of the windows to his left, the waitress unconscious at his feet. Solo stood in front of him, an odd brown weapon in his hand (it looked like a stake, but that couldn't be right, Duo _knew_ he saw it use lazer tech), red was tied up, literally, under the table they'd been sat at seconds before hand. His girlfriend was next to him, a brown weapon in her hand.

They were all staring at him with wide eyes.

Duo grinned, and stowed his gun away. Yes, that was how to make an entrance. He was the King of Awkward Silences, him.

"What. The. _Hell was_ _ **that?**_ " Solo's voice suddenly tore the silence. Duo flinched at the furious snarl, unable to stop himself from jerking slightly as the dark haired teenager stormed over, "A _gun_ Duo? What the ever loving fuck!" he snarled, hand whipping out and smacking him around the head hard enough to make him squawk. Duo couldn't stop himself from cowering at the smaller teenager's temper, it was reflex. Solo's temper had _always_ been something to fear. "Bustin' inonna fight, yah fakkin' shitcaked hairball! Can yah no take a _hint_ or didyah leave yah brain behind up'pon L2?" the green eyed teenager continued, that familiar harsh rolling L2 slang falling from his lips like a forgotten dream.

Duo couldn't help the earsplitting grin that spread over his face. That accent. Even the old insult. Only Solo ever called him a shitcaked hairball.

He laughed and bounced forward, unable to hold himself back as he banded both arms around the smaller teenager.

"It _is_ you, Solo!" he exclaimed, squeezing the suddenly frozen boy in the tightest hug he'd ever given another living soul.

"...fuck," he heard Solo breathe in undisguised tones of complete horror.

"Wait, you really _do_ know each other?" the girl's voice asked, sounding confused, and a little hurt.

Duo withdrew from his hug a little, unwilling to let Solo out of his grasp just yet. And felt like someone had just punched him in the gut at the expression on his face.

Terror.

He had gone pale grey, his expression twisted as if someone were holding a gun to his head.

"I..." Solo trailed off, mouth open, unable to get anything out as he stared at Duo's chin in a kind of numb terror, not even seeing him.

Duo grinned over at the two, red now cut free from his ropes and being helped to his feet by the girl, he tugged Solo tight up under his arm once again, "Sure do! Solo here and I go _way_ back!"

Solo jerked and shrugged him off, ducking free like the slippery little bastard he was.

"Harry?" the girl asked. Oh, so that was what he was going by these days? Meh, Duo still preferred Solo. It fit the boy better than 'Harry', the shit kinda name was _that_ for someone like Solo?

"I... Yes. I... I do know Duo. We used to... We knew each other back before, before Hogwarts," he admitted, swallowing against his dry throat.

Duo grinned, "Duo Maxwell, at yah service. I may run an' hide, but I'll never tell a lie." He bowed theatrically to them, he liked to think even Trowa would have been proud of that one.

"H-Hermione Granger," the girl returned with a polite, if dazed nod.

Red didn't answer, too busy staring at the ruin Duo made of that dude's head. Or rather, what was left of it. He was looking rather pale as he stared at the fleshy slop on the grimy linoleum floor.

"Don't look at it, Ron. You'll only feel sick," Solo advised grimly, catching sight of where his friend was looking.

"Yeah, no kiddin'. His brain may have been big, but that _ain't_ a healthy colour," Duo observed clinically. He'd seen a lot of brain matter, soldiers, civilians, criminals, and saints.

Red made a sick noise and quickly turned away. Duo shrugged. Not his problem if Solo's friends were soft.

"Baaaack to the matter at hand," Duo drawled lazily, staring at his old friend severely. Solo glanced his way and braced himself just in time. Duo's fist smashed into his face.

"Oi!" red shouted, as Solo crashed into one of the tables behind him.

The taller teenager lunched forward, and hit the ground a second later, Duo knocking him unconscious with a neat smack to the back of the neck. The girl followed half a second behind him as she tried to get to Solo while Red went for him, unable to bring her weapon around fast enough to attack him.

Then Solo was on him.

He was still a quick little bastard.

But Duo hadn't fought and survived the Colony Wars for nothing. Solo was fast, and he was skilled. But ultimately, he was still a civilian, absurd reflexes or not.

Duo caught his wrist as he brought his weapon up, yanked him forward and buried a knee in his stomach. He hauled his old friend up and flicked him over his shoulder, slamming him onto the table Red had been tied up under a split second before.

Solo wheezed, winded as all the air in his lungs forcefully wooshed out. Duo twisted his wrist, pressing his thumb down until he could yank the weird weapon out of his hand.

Solo's eyes snapped open and he twisted, feet bracing against the cafe divider and launching himself at Duo, tackling him around the middle.

The Gundam Pilot staggered, but he didn't go down.

Solo did though, when he drove an elbow down onto the back of the teenager's neck.

Duo caught him before he could smash his face open on the floor and sighed deeply.

"That... did not go as planned," he complained to himself as he hefted Solo's slight weight. Fuck, he weighed even less than Quatre did back during the Colony Wars when they were fifteen. He sighed deeply, dropping his ass down to sit on the floor, and arranged Solo's limbs comfortably on his lap before rummaging in one of his many pockets for a comminucator.

This was going to be a fun one to explain to Sally. Find his _dead_ gang leader from when he was an L2 brat, murder a complete stranger that attacked them, knocked his friends unconscious, knocked _him_ unconscious – no wait.

Solo breathed deep, struggling up into the conscious world, hazy green eyes flickering open, out of focus as he stared up at Duo's nervously grinning face.

"Wow, you're made of sterner stuff than I thought!" he exclaimed, absurdly proud for some reason. He shouldn't be. Solo was going to be one hell of an unholy pain in his ass, he could just _tell_. His buddy didn't get frantic like that unless he was trying to protect people. Duo was a little jealous, he'd often thought Solo would have made a better choice for a Gundam Pilot with that attitude. But he wouldn't have wished the Colony Wars on anyone, _especially_ Solo.

"Du..." he murmured hazily, a moment before his gaze sharpened, and he scrambled up.

"Hermione!" the former gang leader yelped, scrambling to the girl sprawled out awkwardly on the floor. Duo saw him reach for her weapon before he got anywhere near her and grabbed his ankle, yanking him back towards him before he could grab it.

"Nah'ah. Nice try, Solo, but not fast enough." His grin dissolved at the look of anger that painted itself across the green eyed teenager's face. "You've got some explaining to do, Solo. I think I deserve that much," Duo pointed out softly, unable to hide the hurt and confusion he currently felt.

Solo flinched as if struck, and let Duo drag him back, rolling over and sitting up once they were in front of each other.

"Explain what, Duo? That I got the Plague?" he asked dully, staring at him with dark eyes.

Duo shrugged, "It's a good place to start," he pointed out, "What happened? You died. I _know_ you did. We stuck with you until the end, but, I couldn't risk the kids getting sick from hanging with a corpse too long. 'Specially one with Plague. I checked yah mahself, yah died," he grit out, his own harsh slum drawl surfacing with the memories.

Solo drew his knees up, wrapping his arms around them, "Coma," he answered quietly, "Irregular weak heartbeat, low blood pressure, hypothermia. I nearly _didn't_ survive. I... Some old geezer found me. Thought I looked like the long-lost son of some dead buddies of his. He got me patched up. But... I thought you guys was all dead, or at least just gone. I woke up on _Earth_. I had no way of gettin' back tah L2. Fast forward 'few years, the fucker that murdered the old geezer's buddies thinks I'm their legit kid, starts tryin'a kill me too. I never had time tah look in on 'nyone else. Never... Was never brave enough. Didn' wanna know if tha Plague got yah."

He wasn't _quite_ lying. But he was leaving a lot out.

But one thing stuck out to Duo most, "He _starts_ tryin'a kill yah? As in, _he ain't_ _ **stopped**_ _yet_?" he stressed, eyes narrowing.

Solo muttered something scornful about how he _definitely_ left his brain up on L2 before giving Duo a very pointed look, that then slid to the dead body and the unconscious one on the floor. The Gundam Pilot grimaced, okay, good point, shut up, he knew that. Solo rolled his eyes.

Duo pushed himself up onto his feet, "An' these fucks would'ah killed yah, if they managed ta get tha drop on yah?" he asked seriously as he approached the dark one that was still unconscious.

Solo got to his feet, a look of forced nonchalance on his face, "Depends. If they were tha only ones who picked up our trail, they'd prob'ly torture us first. If there was more comin' in after 'em, they'd take us prisoner to bring to their master. He'd do the torturing, the whole 'Join me and we'll rule the world', followed by inevitable betrayal, further torture, _then_ death." His tone was almost chipper with all the dry sarcasm he managed to pack in there. Duo would have been amused if they were talking about anyone else, but as it was -

Antonin Dolohov's head painted the floor in much the same way Thorfinn Rowle's head had.

Solo stared down at the second dead body in shock, and something that looked like horror.

"Duo... he was unconscious, why – " he began quietly, only to fall silent when the Gundam Pilot got into his space again.

Amethyst bored into green, "I just found you, Solo. Ten years I think you're dead. Then like God's finally smiling on me, I find you again. Only then I find out some fuck's trying ta kill yah. Not happening. Not again. Not ever. If I have to be the God of Death again just ta keep yah alive, then the streets are gunna run red, get me?" he swore darkly.

There were lines in his book. Lines Duo swore he'd never cross after the Colony Wars.

But he'd fucking _tapdance in a Gundam_ over those lines for his friends. For the other pilots, for Sally, Noin, Hilde, Relena, and _especially_ for Solo. Always, for Solo.

He didn't give Solo a chance to say anything, he could see those green eyes flaring with anger.

He moved quick, one short, sharp blow, and Solo was out once again. And this time, Duo decided as he rummaged for the tiny first aid kit he kept on his person at all times, he was going to stay that way. It was a good thing Duo never got out of the habit of packing anaesthetic after the War. One shot of General, and Solo was well and truly out. And would continue to be out until Duo said otherwise, until Duo got him somewhere _safe_.

He glanced over at Red and the girl whose name he'd already forgotten. He then looked back at the bodies and the waitress.

He pulled his communicator out again and dialled Sally.

He wasn't enough of an asshole to leave two civilian kids in a place with a pair of corpses and people likely to follow them and finish murderising them. Solo would never forgive him, he knew, as the familiar lovely visage of the former Alliance Doctor flashed onto the vid screen.

He would have the Preventers clean up the mess for him, and haul Solo off somewhere warm and sunny where they could deal with the fall out over the last ten years, and Duo could beat some information out of him about what trouble he'd wedged himself into this time.

 _ **000**_

 **Done. Enjoy this, ladies and gentlemen. Over the last three days I have binge watched Gundam Wing for this fic. And never have I regretted watching an anime more. This cartoon was flavoured with nostalgia in my memories, I recalled it as something good, entertaining, enjoyable. I rewatched it and regularly wanted to lobotomise myself because of how bad the writing, character development, and just... god, everything was awful and Relena concerns me on a deep maternal level. Like, seriously, could you make a character more in danger of becoming the victim of a domestic abuse relationship?**

 **This anime was 'Cardgames on Motorcycles' level of WTF-ery. I shit you not.**

 **Still, I got through it. I managed it. And thus you get this fiction. Enjoy it and review.**


	2. Chapter 2

_One glance was all it took. It may have been ten years, but Duo would know Solo anywhere, at any time. Now he just has to convince the stubborn wizard to let him help. Master of Death? Sorry Snake Face, the Shinigami has no master._ 02/HP, 04/03

 _ **000**_

 **Chapter Two**

He knew Sally wouldn't be happy, but like always, she was graceful in her disapproval, yet somehow managing to be accommodating all the same. It was Une who really let him have it with both barrels once he'd finished explaining the situation. His ears were still ringing from the blistering dressing down the former Colonel gave him when the local Preventer chapter pulled up in a pair of unmarked white vans, one significantly smaller than the other, and a nice, but not too nice, black fiesta with tinted windows. Considerably more nondescript in a way that wasn't _screaming_ 'pay no attention to the FBI agents in the van'.

He watched from his spot perched atop one of the sticky cafe tables, sat cross legged with Solo in his lap, faced tucked against his collar bone where he could keep track of him. God forbid if he put his former gang leader down anywhere, if he turned his back for a second, he would _not_ be surprised to find the slippery shit half way down the street and running fast. That or in the kitchen with something sharp ready and willing to defend his people.

It hurt a little, Duo realised as he watched a clean up crew leave the smaller van with rucksacks and carry-ons that likely had bodybags and cleaning supplies inside, that he was no longer considered one of those people. One of Solo's people. Not really. Because it was _him_ that Solo was trying to protect the other two from, for whatever reason.

He got a lot of wide eyed stares from the Preventers as they came in, and realised just who was waiting for them in the grotty little cafe. He supposed he had made something of a scene inside.

The clean up crew immediately began to gather the corpses while the other Preventers quickly hustled some gurneys out of the larger of the vans. They only tried to reach for Solo the once, and the sudden dark glare they received from the former Gundam Pilot had the much older man snatching his hands back as if they were about to be removed by a plasma torch. Duo and Solo were left to their own devices as the officials quickly wheeled the waitress and Solo's two young friends into the back of the larger van. The three were going to be hauled to the local base to be cared for, the Waitress made to sign secrecy paperwork, and then returned with an offer of counselling after such a traumatic event, the other two were going to be kept in custody for a bit until Sally and Une could arrange for a Preventer Style Witness Protection deal to get the two of them out of whatever firing line that they'd gotten themselves into.

Solo, of course, would be coming with him, and under his protection _personally_.

Duo gathered the green eyed teen a little more firmly into his arms and slid off the table, tipping it a bit as he did so, and then kicked it back upright as he straightened. Casually stepping over the bloodstains now decorating the linoleum from where some idiot had stepped in the pooling blood and then proceeded to track it across the floor, Duo carried his former leader out into the sticky humid London evening. A driver was already waiting for him at the small fiesta, the back door open. He knew he would be expected to take shotgun, but not this time. He carefully laid Solo across the backseat, and then rounded the car from behind and opened the other door to the back, taking the driver somewhat by surprise as he lifted Solo's head and shoulders, and positioned them in his lap once he got in.

"Wisteria Harbour Hotel," he told the driver shortly, feeling them beginning to peel away from the kerb.

"Mister Maxwell, Lady Une – " the driver began nervously only for Duo to cut him off.

"I'll talk to her as soon as I've got Solo squared away somewhere safe. She knows not to expect contact from me any time soon," he reassured the driver as he leaned back in his seat, eyes closing briefly. If there was anyone within the Preventers right now who _could_ understand his current feelings, it would have been her. Her and Heero. But as Heero was currently on a mission somewhere amongst the Colonies doing who knew what, and Wuffers was in China dealing with the shattered remnants of Pre-Colony Triads once again crawling out from the slums and trying to gain a strangle-hold upon the government, neither of them could spare him any attention.

Trowa was enjoying the circus life, spending time with his recently confirmed sister, Catherine Bloom. He had given thought to retaking his birthname, Triton Bloom. But in the end, a name was still only a name, and the name Trowa, while it had started with little meaning to him beyond belonging to a dead man with a bad attitude, it had gained meaning through the lives he saved while he wore it, through the friendships he'd forged, and the trials he'd faced. He felt more comfortable with the weight of the name Trowa, than he did with the clean name of Triton. Cathy was thankfully understanding of his reasons, and didn't take his reluctance to use his real name personally.

Both Quatre and Relena had taken to the duties their late fathers' left them with great aplomb, finding their niches in the ever changing future with ease. While Relena had taken her adoptive father's career and teachings and made them her own as the new Vice Foreign Minister of the Earth Sphere, Quatre had taken over Winner Industries and already begun work on building a new Colony with the aid of his ever fanatically loyal Maganacs. And if he took a great many trips to a certain circus when his schedule would allow it, well, Duo was only going to bring it up at every opportunity and tease the ever loving shit out of his bestfriend by asking whether or not Trowa had yet to grow a pair and make filthy filthy monkey sex with him.

Noin had vanished with the 'mysterious' pilot of the new Tallgeese model after the events of Mariemaia's declaration of war a little over a year ago. It was a shame, Duo mused, he'd thought that Noin and Sally had a little something going on, maybe they did. But Noin's love for Zechs Marquise, or Milliardo Peacecraft, whatever that bipolar blond pain in the ass wanted to call himself, was apparently greater than anything she had going on with the Preventers, or their second in command.

Hilde – ...Hilde had... Things hadn't worked out between them. Duo hadn't been able to figure out what to do with himself after the Wars, and yeah, he'd tried a few things, he travelled a lot, but he'd wanted to do it alone, actually get to know who _he_ himself was now that the wars were over and he had no need to be _the Shinigami of L2_ anymore. But Hilde hadn't... she didn't understand why she couldn't come with him, why he hadn't wanted her there. They argued, and she'd ended up storming away, and Duo... Duo _hadn't_ chased her.

He assumed that was why... in the end... she rejoined the Army, not one of the Preventers, but as a member of the reformed Oz, now the Colony's defence forces. Much like the Preventers, but more public. They had the same job, but unlike the Preventers who had to operate in a great deal more secrecy due to the Earth Sphere United Nation's strict Total Pacifism stance, the New-Oz were much more accepted as a necessary evil amongst the more laid back Colonists. Hilde had been accepted with open arms when she willingly walked into their recruitment centre. Duo never told her, but when he found out, he put in a good word for her as someone who would always fight for whatever side she felt would best help the people, a woman of strength and integrity, one hell of a pilot, and a more loyal and steadfast friend you couldn't hope to find. Last he heard, she was doing good, much happier now than she used to be back when she was trailing along after his useless ass.

As for him, he had a place _waiting_ for him with the Preventers. As of the moment he was on 'Sabbatical' whatever that meant, with an understanding that once he'd finished his little soul searching he would join up as one of their elite Agents, likely as not subbing as a partner for whomever required his technical or stealth capabilities out of Sally, Wuffers, or Heero. But for now, for now he was just some backpacking bum on a cross-planet tour of the Earth Sphere. And if the Preventers asked him for _favours_ , well, he was in the area, he might as well help out as they didn't have anyone capable of handling the situation. And in return, he got a bit of a backscratch in return for situations like this. In fact, this would probably be the first time he'd called it in himself. The other times he'd needed a clean up crew, usually because someone recognised him as a Gundam pilot and either tried to kill him or recruit him for their super secret boyband (his code for terrorist organisation, Sally knew him far too well, Duo loved it, his codes were all like that). He didn't usually _kill_ people though, most of the time the clean ups were to take them into custody, the weapons, their plans; to basically strip their base of incriminating evidence and then erase their presence so that no one got any bright ideas of following their examples for whatever reason.

That wasn't to say he hadn't left a massacre behind him before, but he tried not to think about the blood stained boot prints he left in his wake. Death was just another part of life afterall, and for all that he was trying to leave that behind, he knew he never would. He wasn't _like_ the other Pilots. Heero who had been raised, conditioned, and _built_ to be the perfect soldier, to the point where it had ruined him, and taken years of coaxing and effort from Relena, the other pilots, and the Preventer psyche-team to get the former child soldier to something remotely resembling human. He wasn't a blank slate like Trowa who chopped and changed his personality and views with every name he picked up and discarded. Or Quatre who had been shaped by a loving family, a pacifist father, and the weight of responsibility. Even Wufei wouldn't get it, hell if he even _knew_ he would probably take it the wrong way and try to either arrest or kill Duo as a future threat that needed dealing with. He was, by far, the most hardcore of the five, beating out even Heero for the single minded focus he possessed. While Heero was ice, a subarctic tundra, Wuffers was a fire, a blazing inferno that could cool to embers, and flare up into a wildfire at the slightest breath.

Duo had grown up mired in death. It hung over his shoulders like a shroud, a cloying heady embrace. He didn't think of it the same way the others did. To them it was the _worst_ , either a great sacrifice to be made, a crime, an injustice committed, or a tragedy. To Duo... it just was. It was the next step, the inevitable. All that lives will die, it was fact, reality. And there was no escaping it, and no _reason_ to either. Oh don't get him wrong, it was sad when friends died, but it wasn't like you were gunna live forever either. Death wasn't the sad part. The sad part was the things left undone, the people left unloved, the chances untaken, and the roads untravelled. _That_ was the only sad part. That's why Duo wanted to find himself after the Wars, he wanted to walk the roads he hadn't been allowed to travel just yet, wanted to take a chance he hadn't before. He wanted to actually _live_ before he died.

What he was trying to say was that, he didn't feel guilty about killing. About murder. What he felt _guilty_ about was the lost opportunities, lost futures, the loved ones _left behind_. He did not feel guilty about his actions, but rather their effects.

And he knew the others wouldn't understand.

He sighed as they reached the hotel, he wondered what Solo would think, if he told him? Shaking the thought off, Duo quickly hopped out and rushed back to his room. He packed in record time before speeding through his check out, accidentally throwing the woman at the reception desk over twenty pounds as a tip in apology for the late night work and was back inside the car before she even realised.

Now it was to the docks. He would rent a barge to take him out to one of the near-by Sweeper ships combing the English Channel for parts. They in turn would haul his ass up to Howard's ocean-bound Peacemillion (Duo still thought they should call it Bikini-Bottom but no one appreciated his genius). He'd contact Une once he had Solo safely out to sea, surrounded by Sweepers that Duo knew he could trust, and far away from whatever or whoever it was that put such a hunted look on his face, that made him so frantic as he hovered over his friends, that made him try to push Duo away.

He grinned tiredly down at his oldest friend, gently threading a calloused hand through his coarse dark hair.

Solo had protected him through thick and thin back when they were scrawny little gutter rats, running barefoot through alleys littered with broken glass and drug syringes.

Now it was Duo's turn to protect him.

 _ **000**_

Consciousness was slow to return.

Harry felt slow, and heavy. His whole body aching.

The world was spinning as he opened his eyes, and he felt so dizzy he wanted to throw up.

He squeezed his eyes shut, unable to muster enough concentration to even speak beyond a slurred moan of discomfort. He felt a hand under the back of his head gently lifting him into something of an upright position, that didn't make his stomach any better.

Harry whined and turned his face away. Whoever it was, they gently followed the movement as he felt something being poked between his lips, it dribbled with something cold and wet. Water, he wondered as he slowly sipped a little, trying to lift an arm to grasp the – whatever it was.

The best he could manage was to flop a rubbery hand onto the arm holding it. Whoever it was shifted a little closer, their voice swimming hazily across Harry's senses as he sipped some more water. Right up until his stomach _clenched_.

He vomited. Water and bile searing his throat as he felt himself leaning forward, his stomach forcefully ejecting its fluids across the bedding.

He was too hot, his everything was dull and fuzzy and he felt sick.

Was he crying? His eyes were burning.

Darkness took him again.

 _ **000**_

The next time he woke, the dizziness was gone, instead, he was _freezing_.

He was shivering so hard his bones were rattling and he didn't know why. He didn't know where he even was. The dimly lit room was alien, the boy sat beside him a stranger – no, no he knew him. He didn't... he didn't know _where_ but he did.

"D-Duo," he croaked softly. Gods this felt familiar. Freezing cold, shivering himself into gasping for air, calling for Duo to... to what? To leave? Yeah. That... that sounded right. He told Duo to leave... why though? His head throbbed like it was filled with too much hot cotton wool.

Everything was swimming, his mind, his memories, he felt as if everything were lurching from side to side in stomach turning swoops.

A straw was prodded into his lips again, and chalky lukewarm water filled his mouth.

The world cleared a little as he drank, his fuzzy vision remained when he opened his eyes, but it stopped lurching from side to side as his stomach began to settle. He still couldn't _think_ but, it no longer felt so cold, or uncomfortable.

Duo was pressed up close, keeping him warm, holding a foil drink pack that Harry couldn't read. He squinted at the seven year old. He was much too tall, and muscular to be seven. But those eyes, he would know them anywhere. That exact shape and shade of monkshood. What was wrong with this picture... It wasn't the hair, Duo always had long hair, it was cleaner now, brushed, since when did Duo own a brush? Why wouldn't he own a brush? His head was swimming again.

"Take your time, Solo, I'm not going anywhere. You just take it easy." Harry's ears popped, and as if his hearing were tuning in on a radio station, Duo's voice filled his ears. Deeper than he remembered, rougher, but that L2 tang that lilted his words, it was still Duo. Why wouldn't it be Duo? What was he forgetting? He should ask Hermione, she would know. No, Hermione wouldn't. She didn't know Duo. Why didn't she know Duo? She should. Duo was his second, like Ron. But he couldn't have two, but then they were Duo. Duo, duo, a duo. The fantastic four. The four of them. Harry, Hermione, the duo, and Solo. No... He...

"Man, if I'd known you'd have such a bad reaction to tha general anaesthetic I'd have used somethin' else t'keep you under," one of the duo was saying, no, not one of, the Duo, he was Duo. Together they were Duo, because... he was Solo. Right? Solo and Harry made a Duo... no... "Yer just confused buddy. Tha's the drugs talkin'. Just keep it slow an' steady."

The straw was slipped between his lips again and Harry/Solo – Solo/Harry, Sorry? Halo? - drank automatically.

It was like the more he drank, the better he felt, the more his brain cleared.

He was in a little metal room, it was homey, lived in, despite how spartan it seemed. He was bundled up on a single bed with a firm mattress, in what practically could be called a nest of blankets, duvet covers, and pillows. Pictures on the walls of exotic places, a few schematic designs were taped to the bare metal. A long desk dominated the opposite wall with a long shelf beside it, folders and notebooks and files were everywhere, desk-side draws occupied the space under the long desk – not desk, shelf. It went from wall to wall at desk height, and operated _as_ a desk, but it was still a shelf, built into the wall. A smaller shelf on top of it with all the folders and files, and a lamp that was turned off. A small grouping of plastic Mobile Suit toys on display atop it.

And next to him, practically wrapped around him, was Duo. But not, because Duo hadn't been taller than him, hadn't been thicker than him. Because just like him, even though he made sure Duo got a good portion of the food they scrounged, just like him, he turned around and gave most of it to the little ones. Duo was shorter than him, supposed to be, because Solo was older, by a little. They worked it out once. They read a book in an old doctors office before it got demolished. Kids don't tend to remember things before they're three, and only remember a little after. So, when the best that Duo could remember was an Alliance raid on the Black Dragon Fang, a gang of drug dealers and weapons traffickers in the blue district, Solo counted back three years. Meaning that Duo was born in winter, back in 180 AC. And Solo could remember even further back from there, so they decided he was summer 180 AC. Making Solo older by at _least_ five months, closer to six. Those five months were very important.

Not so important anymore though, Harry decided hazily as he tried to sit upright under his own strength but couldn't quite manage it. He felt off balance, and rubbery. Like he couldn't control his own muscles or strength.

Duo grinned down at him, relief colouring his face as he carefully pulled Harry back against him and upright, so he was sat up now, using Duo's shoulder as a headrest, "Hey, sleepy face, how yah feelin'?" he asked softly, gently tugging the now empty water ration-pack away and tossing it over his shoulder into the waste paper bin without looking. Harry watched it in a daze as it landed neatly inside.

"Still a little confused, huh?" Duo asked after a moment of silence, rubbing a hand up and down Harry's shoulder from where it was wrapped around him, "That's okay. You were under for a while, shouldn't have kept you like that for so long, but I had ta make sure you were somewhere safe before wakin' yah up," he continued to explain, staring at the far wall and the little models on top of the shelf as he kept rubbing Solo's arm.

He drugged him.

It suddenly struck Harry with a surprising degree of clarity.

 _Duo drugged him_.

They moved at the same time.

Harry lashed out, and Duo caught him. It was almost _insulting_ at how easily the former street rat over-powered him.

"Calm down, Solo! I'm not going to hurt you!" Duo was saying, loudly, over the sound of Harry's frantic hissing and squirming attempts to free himself.

"You _drugged_ me!" the Gryffindor flared, furious and indignant all at once.

"Well, _yeah_ ," Duo agreed, as if it were an obvious course of action and Harry needed to stop freaking out over it. "You were fighting me tooth and nail, dude. What was I supposed to do? You were in danger and didn't want anything ta do with me."

Harry tried to kick him, he really did. But he neither had the strength nor the coordination to untangle his own limbs from themselves or the bedding he was knotted up in. He barely managed to jerk furiously in Duo's general direction. "Ever think meb'be there was a fakkin' _REASON_?" he snapped, trying to heave himself free from the braided boy's grasp without effect. "People _DIE_ aroun' me, Duo! I ain't getting' yah killed like 'nyone else!" He managed to free a leg with his frantic squirming and immediately twisted. Bringing his knee up and around to smash into Duo's chest.

The brunet caught it easily and grabbed his leg, tucking up up under his armpit, and leaving Harry in a _really_ awkward and physically uncomfortable position.

Duo smirked at him suddenly, it wasn't a nice expression, "People die aroun' me too, So. _You_ fer a start," he reminded the Gryffindor, Harry grimaced but refused to feel guilty as he glared up at him. "Yah can't kill tha Shinigami, So, I think we both know yer more likely ta die than me. But I'm better at protectin' people now though. I _can_ keep ya safe. An' I _will_. Whether yah like it or no," he swore intently, his voice softening as he let Harry's leg slip out from under his armpit.

"I haven't needed you for ten years, Duo," Harry pointed out coldly, glaring at him, "What makes you think I'll need you now?" he demanded sharply. "People change, friendships fade. I moved on. I don't care about you anymore," he spat ruthlessly.

Duo snorted in amusement, "Yeah right. You don't care. That's why you're trying _so_ hard to push me away," he observed. He huffed a sigh of amusement and flopped forward, _ontop_ of Harry, pinning him down in his nest of bedding by sheer weight.

The Gryffindor cursed, L2 expletives foul enough to make Draco Malfoy turn blue and faint falling from his lips, and all Duo did, that fucking shitcake, was laugh and get himself comfortable.

"Yer just gunna have ta deal with it, So. I ain't goin' nowhere. Best get comfy," he advised with a shit eating grin his orchid eyes glinting with dark humour as he released Harry's wrists.

The Gryffindor immediately tried to smash his face in, only he couldn't even – his hands!

"You – you fucking _handcuffed me to the_ _ **bed**_!" he blurted in a mixture of horror and outrage as the cuffs bit into the skin of his wrists and rattled around the metal bars of the headboard. Where the fuck did Duo even _get_ handcuffs?

"Well, I couldn' have yah tryin'a kill me in mah sleep. Seemed like tha best option. Though, yer 'bout as comfy as a sack'o firewood, so I dunno how much sleep I'm gunna get. All sharp edges, and bony bits," the brunet complained, wriggling a little on top of him, Harry grunted and tried to squirm away. Since when the _fucking_ _ **hell**_ was Duo so heavy? He knew it had been ten years, but back when they were brats, Solo was both taller and a little heavier. Now Duo had about three or four inches on him in height, and several _stone_ on him in weight!

"G-get off me, you – _troll_!" the Gryffindor wheezed as Duo put a little too much pressure on his chest by accident. He was going to have bruises there.

"Nope. I like it here," Duo informed him cheerfully, he shifted once more and made a sound of triumph, "Ahh, yes, finally. The comfiest spot. Now if you'll excuse me, I just spent the last forty eight hours awake, and hauling your ass here. And got _vomited_ on for my troubles."

"You deserved it," Harry seethed glaring down at him.

"I am going to sleep. And if you're noisy, I'll tickle you," the brunet continued as if he hadn't spoken. Harry gaped at him, did he _honestly_ just threaten to fucking _tickle_ him after kidnapping him and fucking _handcuffing him to the bed_? Really, _fucking_ _ **really**_?

He wasn't sure what he was feeling, but he was pretty sure it was something close to towering apocalyptic rage.

Then Duo tightened his grip, and buried his face in the side of Harry's neck, "I missed you. Please don't leave me again," he whispered, his voice cracking a little at the end like the world's most heartbreaking guilt trip, and just like that, all the fight left him at once. Harry slumped, breath leaving him in a woosh along with his anger.

He stared up at the ceiling, at the corny poster of a bikini-model sprawled out on pure white sand with crystal blue seas and palm fronds in the distance. Duo had drawn a moustache on her. One of those little Hitler toothbrushes to accompany the Mickey Mouse ears he scribbled amongst her artistically tousled blonde hair.

"I can't promise that," he whispered softly. He _had_ to leave. He didn't _want_ to, but he _had_ to.

He had to because there was a war resting on his shoulders, because every day he delayed was another muggleborn that got tortured, or killed, because he wasn't fast enough, wasn't strong enough. Another friend who ended up on the end of a crucio, or a Dementor, or an Avada, because he wasn't smart enough, good enough. Wasn't the hero they needed. Wasn't up to the job. He shuddered under the brunet, squeezing his eyes shut and tried not to think about Cedric's blank gaze, about Dumbledore's broken body at the bottom of the Astronomy Tower, of the almost _graceful_ arc Sirius' body made as it fell through the Veil, his face still laughing, completely ignorant to his death as he was swallowed by silvery whispering shrouds.

"Can you promise you'll come back if I let you go?" Duo asked softly against his neck, not looking up. Already knowing the answer.

Harry gave thought to lying, he opened his mouth to do it, but the words got stuck, and he closed his mouth. Unable to answer.

They didn't speak again.

 _ **000**_

 **That... did not go as planned. Goddamnit guys. Welp, at least the other stuff I have planned is going to happen.**

 **And yes, those are legit reactions to coming off general anaesthetic, all pulled from varying NHS websites. Admittedly confusion and memory loss are more** **common** **in elderly patients, I figured with Harry being under for so** **long** **he'd get some of the gnarlier side-effects.**


	3. Chapter 3

_One glance was all it took. It may have been ten years, but Duo would know Solo anywhere, at any time. Now he just has to convince the stubborn wizard to let him help. Master of Death? Sorry Snake Face, the Shinigami has no master._ 02/HP, 04/03

 _ **000**_

 **Chapter Three**

Duo uncuffed him from the bed in order to eat, but he didn't take them off, instead he just cuffed Harry's hands back together and handed him a plastic tray piled high with food. They had somehow fallen asleep and woken up within minutes of each other ravenously hungry. For now, he was playing nice with his old friend, letting him think he'd won. Once he let his guard down enough, Harry would give him the slip and... He'd hide out at Number 4. Contact Ron and Hermione via Patronus while lying low, and wait for them to catch up. Then they'd be able to go on their Horcrux hunt properly. The sooner they dealt with those things, the sooner they could deal with Voldemort.

Harry just hoped they got him before he could do too much harm to the Wizarding World now that he was in power.

He didn't have _time_ to be playing House with Duo.

He tried not to let his frustration show as he played the part of a well behaved prisoner.

Harry stared at the huge tray of food in his lap and looked up at Duo who had, if it were possible, even more on his tray. "You're joking, right?" he asked flatly. The brunet peered at him in confusion, fork dangling from his lips. Harry gestured to his tray in disbelief.

"I know it isn't much, I didn't want you to throw up again if you still weren't quite over the anaesthetic. I'll get you some more later, promise," Duo explained easily as he dug back into his food.

Harry stared at him in disbelief. _Isn't much_? This was more than Harry ate in a day, on one tray.

"Duo, I can't eat all this," he stated.

"Sure you can, I'm payin' for it. We'll call it ten years of missed birthday presents. You just gotta cuddle with me whenever I want in return, we'll call that _my_ missed birthday presents," he laughed, waving his fork around.

Harry wanted to throw the tray at him.

Shaking his head, Harry dug in. He was hungry, but there was no way he'd clear even half of this, not when he'd gotten so _used_ to cutting his portions... going from the streets of L2 to Privet Drive had actually cut his food-intake down. And while at Hogwarts he'd still been a picker, not eating an awful lot at any given time, mainly because he'd just gotten into the habit, and also because... because _Harry Potter_ wasn't supposed to be greedy. So he never changed his eating habits. And it wasn't like anyone noticed. Ron even said it was a good thing, once, because it meant there were always extra sausages for him. He hadn't thought anything about it, just smiled at him around a mouthful of egg and toast and bacon. Harry had always had to control himself carefully when it came to food. Don't take too much, use a knife and fork, back straight, elbows in, _do not ever guard your food_. No matter how much everything in him screamed to drag his plate closer, to curl his arm around it, to hunch over, and bring himself to his plate, instead of his fork to his face. He had to control himself. He had to... he had to pretend to be Harry Potter. He had to pretend that... there was nothing wrong with his upbringing. That he didn't spend weeks slowly starving to death drinking out of taps and sucking on stale dog biscuits his teeth hurt too much to chew.

He didn't even have to pretend anymore, it was as natural as breathing. He only really noticed it when he saw the way Duo leaned over his food, tray in one hand, fork in the other, shovelling it in as fast as possible with a single minded focus. It was... a little sad. Because he knew why he did it, and he knew why he could not.

His appetite abandoned him as he looked down to one side. But he could eat no matter how he felt, slowly picking his way through the pasta, not tasting it as he ate. Merely chewing and swallowing once it was soft enough. Duo still managed to finish eating before him, despite his huge tray. When Harry knew he couldn't eat more without risk of making himself sick, he held it out.

"I'm done," he muttered quietly, taking the brunet by surprise.

"Solo, you – there's over half the tray left?" he blurted in confusion, taking it none the less.

Harry shrugged, picking at his cuffs, "I don't eat much," he admitted softly.

Duo stared at him, clearly confused by how he'd suddenly gone quiet and reluctant to speak. He set the tray down on his desk-shelf, shifting aside a few papers so they wouldn't get gravy or anything over them before crawling onto the bed. Harry blinked a little, confused until the taller boy tugged him into a tight hug.

"Duo – what – "

"Shut up and let me hug you. We agreed it was Christmas presents," the brunet grunted, tightening his grip. Awkwardly, and very confused, Harry patted his chest, which was about the only thing he could reach with his arms pinned to his side via Duo's hug. The braided boy shifted, and for a moment Harry thought he would be released, instead the brunet buried his face into Harry's hair and wrapped himself bodily around him, getting comfortable.

Harry grimaced, "Duo, what are you doing?"

"Cuddling."

Harry squeezed his eyes shut in discomfort, yes, he could _see_ that. "Why?" he stressed pointedly.

"Because I missed you. I thought you were dead, gone. Never to be seen again. But now... I know you're here, you're solid, warm, you smell good. It's nice. Kinda a bit like I got proof that I'm not crazy again," he admitted, giving the wizard a squeeze as he nuzzled the side of his head.

The demand to get the hell off him fizzled on Harry's tongue as guilt churned in his stomach. The urge to tell Duo everything was like vinegary bile in his mouth, but to do so would sign his death warrant, or worse. He didn't know how the Ministry tracked instances of breaking the secrecy laws, but the fact that Voldemort now had the ministry under his control meant that Harry couldn't risk it, just in case they managed to get his location and he ended up with Death Eaters in Duo's safe place. God, if they knew about Duo... He was a muggle! Without magic... There was no way he could protect himself in a straight fight against a Death Eater. And Harry didn't even know if Duo had collected his wand from the cafe when he abducted him or not. Hell, Harry could barely protect himself from a Death Eater _with_ his wand, and he was pretty handy in a fight. Or so he liked to think. Nothing had killed him yet, and not for lack of trying. Without his wand, he wouldn't be able to protect Duo if one of them showed up. It would be a bloodbath, and all that could come of it is a painful death at Voldemort's feet and the destruction of the magical world.

So he sighed, stayed quiet, and let Duo have his way. Older Duo was apparently a lot more hands on and forceful than kid Duo, who would have just cried and spent a day or two looking like a damp kitten when Solo did or said something he didn't like. This one apparently had no problem with knocking him unconscious, abducting him, drugging him, and fucking _HANDCUFFING_ him to the goddamn _bed_.

Harry still couldn't get over the cuffs. Who the fuck DOES that?

Duo stayed plastered to Harry's side for an uncomfortably long time. It seemed like the brunet was hoping that the longer he held on, the more likely it was that Harry would relax, maybe even return the affection. No chance. If anything, he got tenser and more uncomfortable the longer the brunet held on. Harry did not like people touching him. He didn't even like Ginny touching him, even though as Harry Potter he really _should_. Especially since she was his girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend now.

Eventually Duo let him go when it became more than a bit apparent that Harry wasn't about to turn into some kind of cuddle-bug and start aggressively snuggling into his embrace. The Gryffindor tried not to feel guilty at the small sting of hurt on the former street ray's face.

They sat in awkward silence, side by side on the bed.

"So... Where have you been all this time? England?" Duo asked, his voice hopeful. Harry didn't have the heart to refuse him something as simple as a conversation.

"Yeah. I ended up with... My Aunt and Uncle. They weren't too keen on it as they already had a kid to take care of," the green eyed boy explained awkwardly, biting back a lot of the lies and truths he really wanted to say. "What about you? You have a last name now, did ya suddenly get adopted or something?" he asked.

Duo gripped his feet, and stared down at the bedding they were practically nesting in. "Kinda yeah, kinda no. After ya died, we ended up livin' with Father Maxwell, up at tha Church. He took us in, taught us our letters an' numbers. Most o' tha gang got adopted out, happy lovin' families. I made sure. Checked on 'em whenever I could. I got adopted a few times, never worked out. Couldn't stand 'em, and they couldn't stand me." He clapped his feet together as he rocked forwards and backwards, looking up at the pale yellow painted ceiling and the silly bikini model poster, "Freak, Devil Brat, Creep, Cursed Child, ya name it, someone prob'ly said it. In tha end, Father Maxwell adopted me himself. Him and Sister Helen."

Harry allowed himself a small, pleased smile when he saw the way the braided man softened at the mention of his adopted family. He was clearly very fond of them.

"Ya better not be plannin' ta drag me up to L2 and hide me in their basement or sumthin', Duo. Ya'd never get me through customs," Harry warned him with a small smirk.

Duo's smile was pained, "Ya, I know better than ta try. Sister Helen'd spank my ass till it was raw if she knew I'd nabbed ya like this."

Harry knew immediately something was wrong, he nudged the brunet with his knee, expression twisted in concern, "Duo... what happened?" he asked slowly.

He sighed deeply, before suddenly stretching his legs out, stiff as boards, and then tilting to the side, landing against Harry heavily with his eyes shut, tucking his cheek against the dark haired boy's shoulder as he did so. Harry grunted as he found himself nearly toppling over again, managing to catch himself only just with both hands. He opened his mouth to snap at the brunet only for him to speak first, and the words to die on Harry's tongue.

"The Maxwell Church Massacre. Over two hundred souls lost in a tactical strike to erase a terrorist group taking shelter within the building," Duo informed him softly, head resting on his shoulder. "I... I was out. The group said they needed a Mobile Suit. I thought about Praying to God for one, but even then I knew He didn't work like that. So I stole one from the local Alliance Base, and prayed for Forgiveness instead. He... I guess He didn't want to, because the Church was... I got back just after. Sister Helen... she was still breathing, but she didn't... the medics were too late," he continued, struggling to get the words out.

Duo had long come to terms with the events of his past, he didn't really dwell on them _too_ much, they shaped him into who he was now so there wasn't much point on brooding about life's unfairness. Just gotta roll with the punches and hope the next one doesn't break your jaw, really. But trying to tell it to Solo, somehow that was so much harder than telling it to Heero, or Quatre, thus far the only two who actually knew of the event from his own mouth, rather than having it written all over his file at Preventer HQ. He'd given them permission to tell the other two, but surprisingly they had not shared what he had told them, not even Trowa knew. And quite honestly, Duo _did_ expect Quatre to tell him, if only to seek comfort from his not-quite-boyfriend in the aftermath of his Space Heart's _trembling_ from the force of the emotions Duo didn't let them see. Telling them, the words came easily, but the emotions were harder to control. Telling _Solo_... the words were harder, but the emotions were just... gone.

No, not gone, he realised as he felt Solo's arm shift and drop over his head, when he felt the smaller teenager shift to awkwardly hug him properly with his hands still cuffed together, he just felt tired, and sad.

God, Solo sucked at hugs.

He laughed into the former street-rat's shoulder, feeling his hands knot into the back of his shirt before his own arms came up, winding around the older boy's waist and up his back. He may have sucked at it, but it was the first truly _earnest_ hug he had received from the other since he brought him there. The first true indication that Solo didn't actually hate him, this awkward attempt at comfort.

He shifted away as much as he could with Solo's hands cuffed behind his shoulders, and paused when he realised there were tiny wet patches on the fabric of the dark haired boy's shirt.

Tears?

He hadn't cried about the massacre since... well, since it _happened_. He'd learned a long time ago that tears solved nothing.

He looked up at Solo's face, expecting to see – well, he didn't know what, but the complete tired understanding in his face wasn't it.

"I was fifteen when I got a message that my godfather was in danger," Solo said softly, shifting to lean against the wall beside them, "That the guy that killed my parents had him, that he was being tortured. I did everything I could, I checked back with the house, Kr- the butler hated us, he was happy that my godfather would be killed and he would be able to serve our cousin, a murderous bitch by the name of Bellatrix. I panicked. I knew that if – Sirius was all I had left by then. The closest person to have ever been to a father to me. I immediately rushed off to where I was told he was. I took five of my classmates, the best of our little Self-Defence club. Or rather, they followed me, they refused to let me go alone and I'm glad they didn't. We walked face first into a trap. Voldemort's followers wanted us to steal from a Government building, they ambushed us inside. We were lucky. _So so lucky_. Ginny broke her ankle, Neville broke his nose, Ron was attacked by some experimental weapon, he'll have those scars for the rest of his life, and still has moments where his mind isn't even his own. Hermione got hit with something, we don't know what it was, but it was like her lung got shredded to ribbons. She was in the Hospital for ages taking merlin knew how many different medicines just to get her to the point where she could breathe un-aided. Luna got thrown across the room hard enough to give her a concussion and nearly break her back."

Duo listened in silence, his eyes wide as he imprinted every name that fell from Solo's lips deeply into his brain. These were Solo's people, the kids that followed him into a trap and got hurt, but so _breathtakingly_ lucky to survive it when obviously... obviously someone didn't. Otherwise Solo wouldn't – Duo shifted, moving so he was sat in Solo's lap, straddling his legs so the dark haired boy wasn't twisted into such an uncomfortable position with those cuffs on (he could take them off, but Duo knew that would be a stupid idea, he didn't trust Solo not to try and pull a runner, and while he wouldn't go far, he didn't want to risk the older boy getting into trouble).

"I nearly got them all killed. They went down one by one, until it was just me and Neville. Until we were face to face with Bellatrix and Malfoy. Until she started torturing Nev so I'd give them what they wanted. Suddenly Sirius was there, him, Lupin, Tonks, Mad-eye, everyone. They saved our stupid asses big time. But... Bellatrix caught him anyway. They were fighting next to some weird door-arch. Sirius went through but... he didn't come back out. Apparently anyone who goes through it dies, instantly. Only there's no bodies to collect, no nothing. The very person I went there to save, I ended up getting killed. Completely disintegrated into nothing."

Duo's eyes slid shut in understanding. Their circumstances weren't the same, the death tolls weren't either. But the guilt was.

He leaned forward, eyes shut, pressing their foreheads together but didn't bother trying to say anything to assure Solo it wasn't his fault. Those words were as empty as the ruins of the Saint Maxwell Church. As empty as that doorway that swallowed Solo's godfather. They meant nothing to either of them.

"I missed you," Solo suddenly said, grip tightening on the back of Duo's shirt. "I know I haven't acted like it, but I did. I tried not to think about it, about you, but I couldn't – I planned on trying to find you... once everything was done. When it was safe," he breathed before shifting and leaning his forehead against the Pilot's shoulder, arms going limp around him, only held up by the strength of the handcuffs now digging into Duo's shoulder blades. "I was too scared to do it before. But I told myself that I would look for everyone when I'd finished this."

The peaceful atmosphere was suddenly torn by the sound of sirens.

The two of them jumped, Harry being physically dragged off the bed, his arms wrenching painfully as Duo jerked to his feet, and then staggered under Harry's weight. The two struggled for a moment, until Harry got his legs under him and Duo managed to duck free of his arms.

"What's going on!" Harry shouted over the wailing drone, reminding him of a _much_ louder fire-alarm, like the kind they had at his old junior school.

"Dunno!" Duo shouted back as he immediately moved to the door, he smacked a weird screen next to it, and Harry stared when he saw it light up. A computer? In the wall? He goggled for a moment until he saw an older man with a thick moustache in the screen, holding a heavy headset to his ear. "Jackson! What the hell's going on?" Duo shouted over the alarms.

"We're under attack! Bunch'a weirdos in fancy dress just showed up outta nowhere shootin' off fancy beam weapons – fuck!" the old man jerked to the side and down as what was most _definitely_ a _**Death Curse**_ whizzed past his head. "They haven't said nothin'! No demands, or threats! They just started shootin' at folk!"

"Don't let any of the lights hit!" Harry shouted as he rushed over, crowding in next to Duo so the man could see him, "The green ones'll kill you instantly! Red'll set every nerve on fire!" he listed rapidly, "If someone drops, _leave them_ , you can't help! Get behind something glass or thick metal! Green light'll bounce off the glass, red'll break it, both'll splash on the metal, but too much'll melt it!"

"Much obliged kid! Yo, Duo, you gunna come start this party or what?" the man demanded, "I ain't changed the armoury codes since your last luou!"

"Soon as I get Solo square-"

Harry elbowed him in the head, _hard_ , and Duo went down.

"Like fuck," the Gryffindor growled before looking up at the stunned old geezer on the screen. "When he wakes up, tell him I'm sorry!" and then he slammed a hand against the screen and shoved as much magic as he could into it. There was a fizzle and a pop, and the screen cracked, but the image died.

Harry dug through the brunet's pockets, rummaging the small set of keys he _knew_ he felt against his leg during their last cuddle-fest. It was the work of thirty seconds to get them into the handcuffs and free himself, the things were annoyingly small and fiddly, and Harry was fumbling with them in his desperation. But they came off eventually, and then Harry was tearing the room apart for his wand, he didn't find it, but he _did_ find a gun. He hated the damn things, he knew how to use them and use them well, anyone forced to grow up on L2 did, the streets were not a kind place. But that didn't mean that Harry liked them.

Better than nothing though.

He yanked the weird metal door open and immediately began to hear the sound of distant shouting echoing down through weird metal corridors. Harry chased the noise as he checked the gun over, he didn't know the make or model, all he knew was that it had a full clip of bullets, the safety was _there_ currently on but soon to be removed, and that judging by the weight of it, it would have enough of a kick to make his wrists very sore very quickly. He would need to steal a wand, fast.

He had to climb a ladder up a floor (had Duo stashed him in some weird basement bunker or something?), but once he did, he could see natural lighting down the corridor to his left, and the sound of shouting and swearing. Gunfire, and the hissing whizz of spells through the air, the screams of someone under a _crucio_ , laughter.

Harry snarled and raced for the door, there was a Death Eater with his back to the door a little further ahead, he was holding a large black man in a hawaiian print shirt under the cruciatus.

Harry thumbed the safety off his gun and took aim.

The bullet tore through his shoulder and the Death Eater screamed, spell cancelling, wand dropping. Harry dove for it, rolling on the ground in front of the panting man as he whipped the wand up – the Death Eater's blue eyes went wide under his mask at the sight of him.

" _Stupefy!_ " The wand bucked in his hand, trying to reject his magic, but it couldn't. Barely seven inches in length it wasn't long enough to completely reject his magic – the spell blasted from the tip of the wand and smacked into its former owner, dropping him like a marionette with its strings cut.

Harry quickly turned to the downed man, giving him a quick check, "Hey, I know you don't feel good right now, but we need to get you out of here," he said quietly, looking around angrily, thankfully no one had noticed his take-down, they were too busy dealing with the other Death Eaters. He could see about six of them right now, no Inner Circle members though. He would know _them_ at a glance from a mile away. "I'm going to levitate you into another room, okay? It won't hurt, promise," he added, just to warn him. The guy must have been utterly terrified, attacked out of no where by... by _freaks_ using abilities he couldn't understand, Harry didn't wait for his reply and carefully lifted him and sped back down through the corridor he came out of. There was a door on the right that popped open under a simple unlocking charm, it was a store cupboard.

"Th-thanks man," the big guy gasped out, still shaking like a leaf from the after effects of the curse as Harry set him down.

"Stay warm, and stay _awake_. I don't know how long he had you under," Harry ordered as he conjured a blanket and wrapped it around him. The big guy looked surprised, a little wary, but the smile he tossed him was genuine.

"Kick their asses for me?" he asked hopefully.

Harry nodded, "You bet," he growled as he once again turned and left the corridor.

He could feel the Death Eater's wand thrumming unhappily in his hand, Harry didn't know what kind of wood or core it was, but guaranteed it had nothing even remotely like the qualities of his Phoenix Feather and Holly. The tip of it was already a little frayed just from that one forced through spell. It would probably shatter if he used anything too strong, or spelled too quickly. He would have to steal the other wands.

Good thing he was damn handy with a Summoning Charm.

A nasty smirk crossed his lips as he stepped into the room, the weird huge hanger filled with scrap metal.

He lifted the stolen wand and poured every scrap of will into the spell, as if he were back in his fourth year and his very survival depended on pulling his Firebolt into his hands.

" _Accio Wands!_ " he commanded.

Cries of dismay filled the air, swearing, and seven wands pelted the floor at his feet.

Wait, _seven_ wands? There were only six -

Harry dove to one side as a motherfucking _sword_ of all things slashed through the air on his left just a split second after. He rolled, using his near dead wand to summon the small pile of wands back to himself – he dropped the dead wand and snatched another.

The Death Eater was a thin man, he had dark caramel skin and dark eyes, he still wore the standard Death Eater mask and garp, but he had scorned the use of gloves, likely so he could use his sword more comfortably maybe? Harry didn't know, all he knew was this guy wasn't all talk, he actually knew what he was doing with that fucking thing.

The Gryffindor dove to one side and sprung up, lashing a pipe up to smack the blade away, his other arm flicking a banishing charm at the Death Eater. He gracefully wheeled away and levelled his blade again, immediately jabbing out rapidly at Harry who scrambled backwards, slipping every now and again on discarded tools, even puddles of blood on the floor.

Fuck it. These bastards had already broken the statitute.

" _Expecto Patronum!_ "

Prongs bowled him over, sending him sprawling, and ropes swiftly followed, binding him from head to foot.

Someone punched him in the side.

Harry hissed, banishing charm flaring between the two and throwing the other Death Eater to the side, smacking him into heavy machinery. His mask came off, and Harry stared.

He knew him.

That was Monty Fairweather. He was a Ravenclaw, graduated about three years ago. He had been in Percy's class, one of Penny's bestfriends. He'd seen the three of them in the library often, debating Arithmacy and politics. Why on _earth_ would he be siding -

 _Imperio_.

Harry felt light headed with the realisation. Intellectually he knew, of course he did, how could he not when he saw _Stan Shunpike_ of all people chasing him away from Privet Drive. But... they were already using people like this?

" _Stupefy!_ " Harry commanded, knocking Monty unconscious.

He moved through the hanger, carefully, because Monty apparently was stronger than he looked and Harry's side was on _fire_. Three of the Death Eaters were dead without their wands, Harry had knocked both the first, and Monty out, the sword guy was down and bound. Leaving just one left.

And he fled with a loud crack of _Apparation_.

Harry cursed, he had forgotten that if a wizard were sufficiently powerful they could still Apparate without their wands. Like with the Animagus transformation, most actually needed their wands to channel their magic, even when it wasn't a wanded spell.

"Solo! You utter bastard!" Duo bellowed.

Harry rolled his eyes, picking his way out from between the machines as he tucked his new wand away. It wasn't quite as responsive as his Holly wand, but it was a pretty good one, quick and light, it liked him well enough for now. The adrenalin was beginning to wear off and Harry was starting to feel shaky and queasy again, it would pass like usual, he just hoped none of the muggles got killed though, he wasn't rating their chances very high.

"Keep your hair on, Duo. I'm here," he grumped as he stepped out from behind some machinery. "We've got two unconscious, one tied up, and three dead. The last one escaped. You should tell everyone to get away qu- what's that face for?" he demanded with a frown.

Duo had paled and looked at him with undisguised horror.

"Solo, you're bleeding," he choked out.

Harry frowned, "I shouldn't be. He didn't manage to hit me with the sword," he admitted, turning in place to try and find any tears in his clothes.

Duo made a wordless shout, immediately catching him, "Fuck, fuck, you've been stabbed!" Harry yelped as he pressed a hand against his side where Monty punched him, making pain screech across his nerves.

He looked down and gaped, there was a knife sticking out of his side, the blade between Duo's fingers as he applied pressure to the wound, blood welling up between his fingers.

"I... I hadn't noticed..." he admitted faintly, feeling sick as he noticed the thick dark blood wasn't just all over Duo's hands now, it was staining his entire side, a thick _hot_ bloody swath of crimson down his hip, thigh, knee, all the way down to his sock and bloody trainer.

"Adrenalin. You're losing blood fast," Duo summed up grimly, his face pinched with something approaching panic.

Harry gripped the handle of the knife and yanked it out from between Duo's fingers.

The brunet yelled in surprise, immediately tightening his grip over the now _gushing_ wound.

"Solo, what the fuck, are you trying to kill yourself?!" he yelled, pressing hard enough to make Harry's head spin in agony.

"Duo, move your hand, I need to - move it!" the Gryffindor grunted, pulling at the Pilot's blood slick wrist without much success. "Duo, MOVE IT! DO YOU WANT ME TO BLEED OUT?!" he barked glaring him dead in the eye. "I can fix it, but you need to move your goddamn hand."

Purple met green, and slowly, very slowly, Duo pulled his hand away, his grip on Harry's shoulder tightening as blood immediately flooded down the sticky sodden fabric of his T-shirt.

Harry swallowed hard against his nausea and brought his new wand up to his side, if there was one good thing about all the time he spent in the Hospital Wing it was that he not only picked a few things up, but Madam Pomfrey taught him a few, so he could keep himself in one piece long enough for her to get hold of him.

" _Episkey_ ," he invented slowly, making sure to pronounce it right and make the proper wand motion. He couldn't afford to mess it up in his current state.

The stab wound went over warm and incredibly itchy, but the pain lessened to a considerable degree. Using a quick _tergeo_ , Harry could see that it hadn't been PERFECT, but it was good enough. The wound was sealed, it would scar, and be tender for a few days, but he would be fine.

Duo pressed a burning hot hand against it in near disbelief, he must have lost a lot more blood than he thought if his body temperature had dropped that much. "You... You learned how to control it," he breathed in shock before his expression darkened. "Solo, what the fuck is going on?"

Harry grimaced, how to explain this without explaining anything?

 _ **000**_

 **And chapter finished. I was SO close to finishing this this morning, like, I got as far as Harry pulling the knife out before I had to stop. I finished the rest on my phone while riding the bus in.**

 **Hope you like the chapter. Harry's in deep doodoo now, how WILL he explain magic, without explaining magic?**


	4. Chapter 4

_One glance was all it took. It may have been ten years, but Duo would know Solo anywhere, at any time. Now he just has to convince the stubborn wizard to let him help. Master of Death? Sorry Snake Face, the Shinigami has no master._ 02/HP, 04/03

 _ **000**_

 **Chapter Four**

 _The stab wound went over warm and incredibly itchy, but the pain lessened to a considerable degree. Using a quick_ tergeo _, Harry could see that it hadn't been PERFECT, but it was good enough. The wound was sealed, it would scar, and be tender for a few days, but he would be fine._

 _Duo pressed a burning hot hand against it in near disbelief, he must have lost a lot more blood than he thought if his body temperature had dropped that much. "You... You learned how to control it," he breathed in shock before his expression darkened. "Solo, what the fuck is going on?"_

 _Harry grimaced, how to explain this without explaining anything?_

The best answer was not to.

"The shit I didn't want you involved in," Harry stated flatly before trying to pull away, the braided boy however still had a bruising grip on his arm, "Duo, let me go. I need to deal with the others before the one that escaped brings reinforcements."

"How did they even find you?" Duo demanded, releasing the Gryffindor and then following after him as Harry stalked back through the scrap metal back to where he left the other two. Harry grimaced, if he got any closer, he was going to trip over him.

"I wish I knew," Harry answered darkly as they came to the unconscious Monty, and Mister Swordsman, still conscious and glaring at them. He had moved somewhat, obviously having been attempting to shuffle his way to his fallen sword which was still a ways out of his reach, now even further as Harry kicked it away. "Leave him unconscious," he said, nodding to poor Monty. "He's under some kind of mind control. This guy though, he's dangerous. Not many people know how to fight with a sword."

Duo's hand dropped to his gun, "This guy stabbed you?" he demanded harshly, meeting the calculating dark eyes behind the mask slits with barely contained rage.

"No," Harry refused, but didn't add the comment on how it wasn't through lack of trying sat on the tip of his tongue. Duo looked fit to kill, and Harry had no intention of making more corpses, besides, they needed information, and Harry would bet his broomstick this guy was the leader of this little operation of Death Eaters. It took a cool head and some pretty big brass ones for a Wizard to keep fighting without his wand, that spoke of someone who had _earned_ the lead position in a team. Evil and psychotic Voldemort may have been, but he was a consummate Slytherin, give him a tool and he'll find the best use for it – even if he had distaste for its origins. He still used Snape after all, despite being a Halfblood, and Pettigrew, despite being near enough a Squib and a sack of shit besides. It was the work of a few seconds to knock Mister Swordsman unconscious and levitate the pair to the open, adding the third living Death Eater, the first one Harry attacked to their strange floating train of terrorists a moment later, when they got outside though, Harry froze.

Ocean.

Not quite crystal blue, but a dark grungy iron grey and green. As far as the eye could see over the railings of the _GODDAMN_ _ **SHIP**_.

Harry whirled around, grabbing Duo by his red shirt collar, "A ship?" he wheezed glaring at him, voice trapped in his chest as his whole body felt cold. "You dragged me onboard a _SHIP_?"

Where the hell was he? Was he even in England anymore? He had to be close right, or the Death Eaters wouldn't have been able to Apparate to him, or away. Right? _Right_?!

"Duo, where am I? Where the FUCK am I?!" he demanded, shaking him in barely contained panic and anger. "WHERE HAVE YOU TAKEN ME?!"

Duo let himself be abused, he knew that Solo would freak the second he found out. His friend absolutely hated being trapped or confined or even taken somewhere against his will as a kid, and somehow he knew it wouldn't have changed much as he got older. Tolerated it, maybe. But still most definitely hated it. Duo usually got away with it when they were kids, if a fight got too rough and Solo went down and they needed to move somewhere else quick, but apparently a ship at sea was too far out of Solo's comfort zone for even Duo to be safe from the green eyed boy's meltdown. Damage control time, damn he wished Quatre was here, his Space Heart would have come in mighty handy right about now.

"You're on board my buddy Howard's salvage ship, the Peacemillion mark one. Safest place I know. Used to hide here myself during the Colony Wars when I was on the run from both Oz and the Alliance," he explained almost gently when Harry finally stopped shaking him.

"That. Doesn't. Answer. My question," he hissed through gritted teeth.

"At the moment, I couldn't tell you. About a hundred miles out from England, there abouts," he explained further with forced nonchalance as he tried not to dwell on the uncomfortably familiar feeling of drying blood on his hands, Solo's blood. Gunna have nightmares tonight. He carefully untangled Solo's hand from his shirt collar, the grip wasn't tight enough to choke him, but it _was_ making the hairs on the back of his neck stand straight with discomfort. He'd had far too much experience with suffocation to be comfortable with someone's hands around or near his neck, even Solo. _Especially_ when the vindictive little bastard was in meltdown mode (Duo remembered once when they were little when Solo went meltdown and freaked out enough to set someone on fire, first and last time the local brothel tried to grab them, mainly because he accidentally killed the Madam and the place went out of business for long enough that the two of them were able to skip districts).

Harry had to take several deep breaths before he did something he would probably regret, like curse Duo into the middle of next year. Ooh. But it was TEMPTING. Abducting him against his will, dragging him out to sea, stealing his belongings, where the hell even were Ron and Hermione -

"Duo, if I'm here, where the hell are my friends?" he demanded slowly.

Duo swallowed going tense, recognising the tone for what it was, "They're in protective custody with the Preventers. They're the United Earth Sphere's peacekeepers, they're under the personal care of a few war buddies of mine. They're safe, so safe, I don't know where they are, just in case whoever is after you tries to get their location out of me," he explained carefully, well aware of the thin line he was treading with regards to Solo's temper and protective instincts.

"Duo. Take me back. Now," the green eyed youth ordered flatly, tightening his grip on his wand. He would imperio him, if he had to. The knowledge was like bitter ash on his tongue. That he would do such a thing to Duo of all people. Ten years had separated them, and while that meant nothing to Duo, it was enough that Harry wasn't quite as – it wasn't that he didn't care as much, it was – he couldn't. He wasn't allowed. _Solo_ cared about Duo, enough to lie, cheat, murder, steal, and a hundred other disgusting things he didn't want to remember doing. But _Harry_ didn't know Duo, couldn't know Duo, and had _more important things_ to worry about.

Solo died in L2.

Harry was never supposed to remember.

The brunet shook his head, "No can do," Duo declared equally flatly with a bland smile. "I lost you once, I'm not losing you _again_. You think I haven't seen that look in your eyes before?" he demanded in increasing agitation, amethyst eyes narrowing on his face. Apparently, this had been brewing under the surface of him for a while, and now it was finally coming out. "That I haven't _worn_ it myself? You don't think you're gunna survive this, whatever it is you're caught up in," he began to snarl, bristling, winding up, ready for another fight.

"It's my choice!" Harry snapped back, hackles rising.

Duo scoffed, "You just told me it wasn't not even a full twelve hours ago. That some geezer dragged ya into this clusterfuck cause ya looked like his buddy's kid, an' some fucker decided to go gunnin' for ya! Doesn't sound like much of a CHOICE!" he grunted loudly as Harry lashed at him with his wand, imperio on the tip of his tongue but...

He couldn't say it.

Not because it would have done him no good – as soon as he moved Duo grabbed his wrist and yanked him chest to chest while twisting it out of his hand, thumb on a pressure point – no, he just couldn't cast the spell. The words were stuck on the tip of his tongue. He couldn't say them. Couldn't cast it.

Not on Duo.

He couldn't force the words out. So he let the wand drop from his nerveless fingers, he let Duo catch his other wrist and yank it behind his back.

"Ey, Duo! Steady on, man! 'e's a'ight!" a deep voice from behind them protested. It was the guy in the Hawaiian shirt that Harry first rescued, he was limping over with a harpoon gun in hand, the blanket that Harry conjured tied over his shoulders like a cape. He was still shaking a little but his colour was significantly improved. "He's okay, man! I'll vouch!" the big man continued, hobbling over as quickly as possible looking worried as he glanced between the two and the tight grip the former Gundam Pilot had on his personal saviour, he tried not to read too much into their current position, or how they were both covered in blood, especially the short one, Duo wasn't that type of guy. "He saved my skin from one of those masked fuckers, hauled my ass outta there somewhere safe, I swear, Duo! He's a'ight!"

Duo grinned amiably at him, "I know it. Solo's just a stubborn shit who needs some sense knocked into him every now and again before he gets all self-sacrificial," he told the older man with a laugh and a grin that showed far too many teeth, not budging an inch from where he had one hand behind Harry's back, and the other outstretched with his hand empty and lax. Harry couldn't look at him. He wanted to kick himself, shout, and scream. He could _make_ Duo take him home, make him return Ron and Hermione. He _should_ , because there were thousands of lives resting on their ability to get the Horcrux as soon as possible, which they couldn't do if he was on a boat in the middle of the Atlantic. But he still couldn't force himself to cast that spell. The words just wouldn't come out of his mouth, they sat bitter and heavy on the tip of his tongue, and _burned_.

Duo seemed to realise it too, because his grip gentled, and he lowered his arm, letting the blood rush back into the previously numb limb. Harry couldn't look at him. And Duo didn't try and make him.

"We're alright, Jake. I ain't gunna hurt Solo, unless he says please an' all," the brunet added with a salacious smirk and a waggle of his eyebrows.

Harry didn't react, he felt tired all of a sudden. Tired and useless and sad.

"If I say please would you let me go home?" he asked dully.

"When it's safe I'll let you go where-ever you want, Angel. Hell, I'll drive ya personally. But only when I'm _certain_ that fuck wits like them aren't about ta take ya to the Lord before ya time, get me?" Duo stressed firmly, his voice slipping into the harsh grate of L2 by accident.

Frustration made his eyes sting. Neither Harry nor Solo were criers. Tears did not come easily, if at all, no matter the circumstances. Solo remembered joking once that he must have been born without tear-ducts to one of the other kids at the height of the Plague before he himself had caught it, when they lost six kids in the one week. Harry hadn't even cried after Sirius's death. He had raged, he had stormed, and then he had grieved and mourned, but never had he cried. Barely twenty-four hours with Duo had him ready to do so out of sheer exhausted frustration.

"What do you not _understand_ here, Duo?" he pleaded, shaking off his hands and gesturing to the six Death Eaters, the three bodies, and the three unconscious. "Are you really so wilfully ignorant that _nothing_ I've said has gotten through your skull?" he demanded placing his index fingers against his temples for emphasis.

"You've said a lot but haven't _told_ me jack shit!" Duo snapped back.

"That's because if I do, _you_ become a target as well!" Harry snarled, gesturing to the Death Eaters, "Do you know who he is? I went to fucking _school_ with him. He was friends with the Prefect in my House, my bestfriend's older brother used to do homework with him in the library! And yet he's here, against his will, and he rammed a knife in my side when I know for a fact that he _faints_ at the sight of blood! The people hunting me don't give a _damn_ who gets in the way, they don't care how many innocent people you kill, how many you arrest. They'll just go out into the street, grab another, take control, and send them out again! Do you understand? They can _control_ people! Who's to say your Preventers aren't already under their control? The day you found me was the day they took over the British Ministry! That's why we were running, I was at my friend's _wedding_ and they attacked. I don't even know what happened to his family, my friends, my teachers! Just because they're connected to me, they're in danger! Because some crackpot old bat with an unfortunate habit of being disturbingly correct about the future bullshitted a job interview in a pub and got overheard by the wrong people!" he ranted furiously, voice rasping hoarsely by the time he was done.

Duo's mouth worked soundlessly, unable to come up with a response to that.

Harry jabbed him in the shoulder, green eyes blazing, "I could do it too. Control you. I learned. I've had it done to me so many times I figured out how," he rasped, panting, "I tried. Just now. I tried to make you take me back, let me go. But I _couldn't_. I couldn't cast it. I couldn't get the _goddamn_ words out!" he heaved, and then shoved him. "People are depending on me to end this, I was told how to end this, but I can't _tell_ anyone because I can't _trust_ anyone! And you're keeping me here while hundreds, _thousands_ of people are suffering, dying, and worse!" he bellowed, thumping the former Pilot's chest. "because of you! Because I'm too _weak_ to cast that one fucking spell! Because I _can't_ cross that line and control someone I care about! I _hate you!_ " his voice tore as he hit Duo again and again and again.

He never saw Jake move.

The butt of the harpoon gun impacted against the back of his head and he dropped like a puppet with its strings cut.

Duo caught the former streetrat on the way down, feeling like the biggest ball of scum on the planet.

"That... could have gone better," Jake observed uncomfortably, shuffling and cradling his gun like a nervous child.

"Yeah, no kiddin'," Duo murmured as he carefully lifted Solo into his arms, he was still worryingly light and scrawny. He'd forgotten just how bad some of Solo's meltdowns could be. But this was the first time the green eyed boy had ever told Duo that he hated him, and even though it tasted like a lie, it still _hurt_.

"Du, far be it from me t'butt in..." Jake began awkwardly, clutching his harpoon gun, "But it sounds like yer beau's caught up in some pretty bad stuff, if there's really that many people on his case about this... then maybe you should help, man? I mean, if there's anyone in the world who's gunna know how that feels, it'd be you Gundam Pilots, right? I'm just sayin', even if it is protective custody or whatever, keeping him here isn't going to help any," he pointed out, shuffling his feet. "The kid looks wrung out, and stressed to shit."

Duo stared at him for a moment, chewing his lower lip, "I'll think on it," he said before looking down at the collective prisoners. "Get the bodies out of the sun and bagged up, I'll call some people to pick them and our prisoners up. Let's see how much more info we can get on the situation out of them," he muttered, knowing down to the soles of his boots that they would break their silence long before Solo, no matter what the torture involved. But he wasn't about to torture Solo, even if what he was currently doing probably felt like it to the former street rat.

The pilot grimaced as he hefted Solo into his arms, making his way to the cargo elevator rather than risk trying to carry him down the ladder, meant walking a bit further, but it was safer for all involved.

Once back in his room, he laid Solo down on the bed and tugged some of the copious amounts of blankets out from under him and laid them out. He paused, giving thought to the handcuffs, but even as he touched them, he only picked them up to put them away in a draw. He wanted to protect Solo, not be the _cause_ of his pain.

He booted up his laptop in order to contact Une. When he was finished, he'd call Sally, see what she had to say. She usually gave pretty good advice, and he was in sore need of it right now.

Une was livid that the enemy had somehow managed to get to them, she asked after his charge and Duo angled the computer so she could see him and explained how he'd become distressed and violent upon discovering where he was, they knocked him out before he did any damage.

"Apparently he was charged with ending the conflict, much like we were, but he can't trust anyone but the two you have to help. Mind control is apparently a thing that can be done, so he's freaking out over everyone's safety except his own. I honestly don't know what I'm doing, Une. I thought I was doing the right thing by keeping him _out_ of the fighting, but now I'm not so sure," he admitted, raking a hand through his hair in frustration.

Une sighed on the otherside of the communicator, " _We've managed to piece together_ _something_ _of a picture from your Solo's friends, and from what I already knew. This isn't the first time I've brushed up against these people, before hand, Treize usually pushed me away from the situation, so I can guarantee that individuals in significant positions of power are aware of them. Thus far, from what I understand, your Solo is part of a secret society that uses highly advanced and unknown biotechnology. I've not yet figured out just what their selection methods are, some people seem to be born into it, others are collected before they undergo puberty. More rarely are people expelled from it, but it does happen, and to a totality, none of them will speak of it. Absolutely none. And yet none of them display signs of brainwashing._

" _We have interrogated the two teenagers you sent us, non-violent methods only. From what we've gathered, their Government is compromised extensively into an almost Hitler-esque regime. Undesirables are being rounded up, protestors put down, objectors ferreted out. And in the middle of it all, it seems as though the only true opposition to the regime was recently assassinated, and handed the reigns of his little war down to his successor. A teenager._ " She rubbed her forehead, and Duo ground his teeth, wanting nothing more than to start shooting people. Quatre would be so ashamed of him if he knew just how black Duo's rage could be.

" _Do you have anything to add to that? Any information I can use to prompt the two I currently have? The boy is essentially brainless, he knows nothing of our world or technology, but he seems less likely to give us the needed information. The girl is smart, but she is naïve. If I can get under her skin, then I know she'll spill everything we need to know._ "

Duo rubbed his chin and thought back, "Solo said that... This wasn't the first war. Apparently his parents were murdered in the last one, just before it stopped. How that translated to him ending up on L2 when supposedly he was born in England I don't get. But apparently his Aunt and Uncle didn't like him, I can only assume they knew." He fell silent for a moment before, "he said something about some old lady with a talent for guessing the future bullshitting a job interview being the cause of the situation. She got overheard by the wrong people, and apparently that puts anyone connected to him in danger... Friends, teachers, even his friend's family members. Apparently they were at a wedding when they were attacked.

"A few years ago, the girl, Hermione, she got her lung shredded when they tried to rescue Solo's godfather; the guy, Ron, he was attacked by something, he'll have episodes where he isn't himself; there were others, Ginny and her broken ankle, Neville and his nose, Luna nearly had her spine broken. They talked into a trap, and Harry's godfather died anyway, something about an arch that killed anyone that went into it," he explained thinking hard on past conversations with Solo. Part of him didn't want to say anything about it to Une, they were private moments, words spoken to try and reassure him after he said about the Maxwell Church Massacre, but if it got his friends to open up and talk, if it made it easier for Duo to protect Solo...

"How long till your people get here to collect the prisoners?" he asked rubbing his head, Solo hit him pretty hard and he was going to have one hell of a goose-egg on his head.

" _Two hours. Get some sleep, 02, you look like you need it,_ " Une told him, blunt as ever. " _And don't you worry about Solo. Give me a few days with the prisoners and I'll have everything you need to deal with him and his situation._ "

Duo flashed her a tired smile, "Sure thing, Une. Thanks."

They didn't bother with goodbyes, merely ended the call then and there. Duo sighed deeply as he spun his chair around to stare at Solo on the bed.

"What the fuck did they do to you, So?" he asked softly, staring at the tiny seventeen year old looking so _tired_ and _ill_ and, god fucking damn it all, _fragile_. Solo was like a mountain, a monolith, in Duo's memories. That unbending strength and determination and fiery passion, sass and snark and vicious barbs, the boy who didn't let the gutter of L2 drown him, who dragged himself up and pulled them out with them. Duo _remembered_ following him, watching his back, that scrawny spine spun from Gundanium.

Not even the Plague could sap Solo of his strength, not until the very end. He lasted longer than everyone, pushed everyone even as his lungs were vomiting blood, and his stomach couldn't keep anything down, until he was thinner and smaller than all of them. But his eyes still burned fever bright, he still straightened that fucking _Gundanium_ spine and forged on. He took them to the safest district, the one on the otherside of the colony. There was no where _truly_ safe on L2, that was why their little gang moved so often. But this one was next to the weather plant, it was warmer, and the simulated winter was coming up. Solo made sure, even when he was _dying_ that they were taken care of.

Duo scowled violently, slamming a fist down on the table.

Nothing had changed, had it?

Solo was _**still**_ putting other people ahead of himself!

What he had used to admire so much in his former leader, he now _hated_ with every fibre of his being. And he was selfish, so fucking selfish, because he didn't give a shit if that was what Solo wanted, because he wasn't going to sit back and watch him die _**again**_!

He needed to blow off some steam, he needed to – to wash Solo's _blood_ off his hands. He needed a shower.

Some hot water would hopefully clear his thoughts.

Making sure to remove any weapons from the room, and lock it behind him, Duo made his way down to the showers at the end of the hall, towel over his shoulder. He'd take Solo to clean up when he was awake, this would just be a quick shower, he'd wash properly when he took his friend in to get cleaned up – and get a better look at that stab wound while he was at it.

 _ **000**_

 **Uncooperative chapter is** **uncooperative** **. Fuck you chapter! Fuck you!**

 **Still, in other news, I managed to get it out. Which in of itself was quite an accomplishment I feel. Enjoy~**


	5. Chapter 5

_One glance was all it took. It may have been ten years, but Duo would know Solo anywhere, at any time. Now he just has to convince the stubborn wizard to let him help. Master of Death? Sorry Snake Face, the Shinigami has no master._ 02/HP, 04/03

 _ **000**_

 **Chapter Five**

Harry woke in darkness, his head was throbbing, and his eyes were sore. He was warm though, and comfortable. So he closed his eyes and went back to sleep, the arm around him tightening only a little.

 _ **000**_

He woke up next when he felt someone shift against him, and remembered what happened. Someone had knocked him out when he'd started hitting Duo. He'd completely lost his shit, ranting and raving, lashing out at Duo. He really shouldn't have been surprised that someone laid him out. He had been getting out of hand, any longer and he might have used magic to do something, _anything_.

He drew his legs up to his chest as best he could with the arm wrapped around him, and tucked his hands under his chin, feeling what was unmistakably Duo shift against his back and practically mould himself around him. He closed his eyes and refused to apologise.

He could feel Duo's nose against his head, breath hot and moist against his neck and ear, and for the first time, it didn't put his back up. Didn't make his skin positively _crawl_ to have someone plastered up against him. The only problem was...

"Do you know how gross it feels to hug someone covered in drying blood?" Duo rasped softly, voice still rough with sleep as he buried his face in Harry's hair.

"Do you know how gross it is to be _covered_ in drying blood?" Harry retorted, voice rough with sleep.

"Yes," Duo admitted, squeezing him tightly for a moment, before letting him go and stretching his way out of the bed, letting all the warm air escape and leaving Harry shivering in place unhappily. Eventually he climbed out of the mess of blankets while Duo went hunting for a spare towel he could use, and grimaced as he had to unpeel himself from the blood liberally smeared across the sheets, true it was mostly dry and stiff now, but... He pulled the bedding back and began to strip it as he would have done while Dudley was still a bed-wetter, much to Duo's surprise as he both hadn't been expecting it, or Solo to be any _good_ at it either. "Just toss it in the corner there, I'll deal with it later," he said as he dragged out his wash bucket and finally found that extra towel, it was a little threadbare, and probably not big enough, but it was all he had. Duo debated it before he handed the larger towel over to Solo. It wasn't like he himself was shy, but Solo seemed the type these days, best to give him the bigger towel.

It was pretty late at night, so everyone was sleeping except for the night crew who were all busy in other areas, so Duo didn't feel quite like he was guiding a murder victim to the bathroom, though Solo definitely looked it. Covered in blood, pale faced, and still slightly shaky from blood loss. He would be feeling the cold a lot right now too. Good thing Duo had brought some extra warm shirts with him, anticipating the fact that Solo would have nothing to change into.

He couldn't resist peeking though when they began to strip. Solo was skinny alright, wiry in the same way a malnourished alley cat was, not a spare ounce of fat on him leaving each lean muscle to stand in stark, almost painful relief on his thin frame. Fantastic legs though, and where his legs met his back. That whole general area, actually. And above it. Shit, was he drooling? No, good. Duo quickly yanked his eyes away, but not before taking note that Solo had some _really_ weird and worrying scars all over himself. That one on his leg looked nasty, like he'd been mauled by some weird kind of sabre toothed spider or something.

Stepping under the spray of hotwater was amazing as always. Teasing his braid out was less so. Having thigh length hair this thick was every girl's dream, but they never accounted for how much of a pain in the ass it was to: A/ keep clean, B/ keep tidy, and C/ keep out of the way. Brushing it alone was one hell of an arm-workout.

He caught Solo watching curiously from the corner of his eye, but said nothing, watching him back.

The former street rat looked to be trying to work himself up to asking something, but in the end, he didn't. Merely stepped under the spray of his own shower and began to scrub at his hair, turning his face up into the spray, letting the heat flush his pale skin. Apparently Solo liked his shower hot enough to summon Satan from the pipe work, Duo noted as steam began to rise from the stall next to him. When he saw the green eyed boy reaching for handsoap, he knew immediately what was going to happen, and couldn't stop himself from breaking one of the cardinal rules of shared shower spaces – he reached over the divider and grabbed Solo's arm before he could.

" _Don't_ wash your hair with handsoap," he whined in something that was almost like pain. "Use shampoo first, _then_ conditioner. Leave the conditioner in for a bit, then rinse it out. Trust me, you learn a thing or thirty with hair this long," he assured the former street rat as he withdrew back over the edge of the stall, rummaged his own shampoo out, and handed it over, all the while trying not to give Solo the impression he was ogling. Even though he was.

It was hardly his fault though! His relationship with Hilde hadn't really been very sexual, while his brief thing with Heero had _only_ been sexual, not to mention the various one-night stands he'd had with people of varying genders, and tastes, around the world on his sabbatical had given him quite the healthy appetite for the more carnal pleasures. And, to be perfectly honest, Solo was his type all over. Petite, short dark hair, passionate, determined, and with _amazing_ eyes, hell, even when they were gutter rats Duo had a thing for Solo. He didn't view it sexually at the time, but he had entertained the idea of marrying his bestfriend more than once when they were all grown up. Now he was older, he knew that Solo had been his first crush, his first _love_. That was why his death had scarred him so deeply.

Glancing over to him squinting at the shampoo bottle, trying to read the small print without his glasses, Duo couldn't help but quirk an exasperated smile.

Ten years was a long time to love someone you thought was dead.

And while Solo had grown up, had changed, he was still the same person. And Duo still loved him. And yeah, if he were being honest, he wanted to do him as well. The urge to be as close to him as possible, to touch him, be in his space all the time, hold him, it was impossible to ignore. Duo was, surprisingly, not a very tactile person with other people. Not even with Heero, and Duo had regularly stuck his dick inside the other pilot, amongst other activities. Hell, even Hilde couldn't snuggle with him for long before he was laughingly ducking away and deflecting her attention to other matters before she could notice that he was blowing her off. He didn't even do post-coital snuggling. Duo was not a cuddly person, fact – except, apparently, for Solo.

Washing out his shampoo, he got to work lathering conditioner into the ends of his hair before piling the whole thing on top of his head and clipping it in place so he could get to work scrubbing the rest of himself while the conditioner got to work making the mane he called hair manageable. He nudged the bottle under the divider for Solo to use once he'd washed his shampoo out, and very pointedly didn't look – not that he could see much through the thick cloud of steam billowing out from his stall anyway.

At present, he'd probably spent more time wrapped around Solo in the last seventy-two hours than he had with Hilde in the entirety of their year and a half relationship. And it didn't feel weird, or wrong. If it weren't obvious that Solo had become so unused to contact that _wasn't_ painful he recoiled from any kind of touch, Duo would have probably been a great deal grabbier.

"I know you used to have long hair, but, that's a little ridiculous. Why haven't you cut it?" Solo finally asked, peering over at him through the steam of his shower, cheeks flushed in what Duo _hoped_ was more than just heat.

Then he registered the question and grinned, just a little self consciously, "Originally? In remembrance of you. Then as the bodies kept pilin' up, the list o'names got longer too. It's the weight of my sins," he explained solemnly. And yeah, he wasn't going to lie, sometimes the braid actually gave him headaches. The sheer weight of his hair could cause him some crippling migraines, but he refused to cut it. It was the last thing he had left of Solo, of Sister Helen and Father Maxwell. Solo who used to call him a hairball, of Sister Helen who instead of trying to cut it off showed him how to wash, brush, and braid it back, and Father Maxwell who taught him about remembrance and memorials and repentance. He liked to think of each segment of his braid being for each of them, the three people who shaped him the most.

Something flickered in Solo's eyes, as if he wanted to say something but couldn't think of what. Instead, "Doesn't it get annoying though?" he asked with a small hum.

"Not as annoying as people who pull it," the pilot admitted with a dark expression. The first and _only_ time Wufei dared to grab the braid during one of their slap-stick comedy routines to blow off some stress, Duo had whipped around and broken his nose so suddenly the martial artist hadn't been able to protect himself. He had freaked everyone in the house out, especially Quatre who could _feel_ the sudden black rage, with his out of the blue violence. Even when they were together he didn't let Hilde or Heero touch it, not that the former hadn't tried, the latter knew better. Quatre was perhaps the only one who got a bye for pawing over it, and that was simply because he was helping Duo untangle it from some machinery they'd been drawling through. But even then he had been grinding his teeth about it. Such a silly thing to get so precious over, but there you had it. With the exception of his memories, the braid was all he had left to remind himself of the gang, of Solo, or of the Church.

Solo was frowning a little in bewilderment, his inky black hair plastered down under the shower spray, but he didn't ask. And Duo didn't really want to tell. It was more than a little embarrassing to admit, especially to one of the very reasons he kept his hair so long, and was so defensive about it. Still, he wondered why he cared so much about what Solo thought of it. It wasn't like they had any chance of hooking up anymore, his friend could hold one hell of a grudge, and Duo hadn't done an awful lot to endear himself to the former street rat. Hell, in fact, he'd done an awful lot to put himself well out of Solo's good graces, there was little to no chance of his ever making the beast with two backs together. But still, if it kept Solo alive and well, Duo could deal with that, happily so even.

Unsurprisingly, the green eyed teenager finished before him, and left the stall to get dried off and changed. Duo only peeked a little. It was hard not to. Solo had a very perky butt. He must have done a lot of running, or athletics. He wouldn't be much longer, he just had to finish washing off the last of his mint body scrub (he liked how it tingled in places), and then rinse the conditioner out of his hair.

"Duo, what's that?" he heard Solo suddenly ask, his tone a little sharp and accusing.

The pilot snorted in amusement, glancing over his shoulder, "I'd think _you_ would know a dick when you – "

Solo caught his shoulder, and pushed him back around, and Duo couldn't stop himself from tensing just a little when he felt the seventeen year old swipe away several strands of hair from the back of his neck (no matter how careful he was, there was just _too much hair_ to be completely clipped back), oh, he meant _that_.

"Oh, that thing. Don't actually know," he admitted, reaching back to pull his hair aside a bit better so Solo could get a good look, and if he flexed his back and shoulder muscles a little so they'd be more visible, well, he was just shifting around, it wasn't like he was showing off on purpose (he was, Solo didn't have to know that though). The look on his face was gratifyingly intense as he studied the back of Duo's neck with those blade sharp green eyes, anyone else probably would have felt very unsafe with those eyes on them, Duo didn't think he'd ever felt so at home since the Church. "Pretty sure it's a brand, a gang sign or something. Y'know, mark the brats o' tha whores so they know which ones ' _belong_ ' to 'em fer later. There used to be a whole bunch'a kids runnin' around the Terminal District with 'em, y'know? Pretty sure I'm the only one that lived ta see anythin' past tha Plagues, though," he admitted rolling his shoulders carelessly as he felt Solo's almost uncomfortably hot hands slid from his skin (how the hell did he not have burns if the shower was _that_ frickin' hot?). He was actually surprised that Solo forgot about the weird symbol on he back of his neck, or had Duo never shown him before? He couldn't quite remember if he did... he knew he showed Ace, one of their gang. He had a brand too. He'd been one of the first to go from the Plague out of their group.

"Why the curiosity? Do you recognise it or something?" he asked, mildly curious now despite himself. He'd always figured his mother was one of the terminal prostitutes, the working girls that lingered at the ship ports for engineers or tourists looking to blow a load of cash, who couldn't afford an abortion or didn't want one, so either died or dumped her kid on the streets at the earliest opportunity when he was capable of walking and talking. Duo honestly didn't know, no one had raised him as far as he knew, his earliest memories were on the streets, and of Solo not long after.

"I've... seen it before," Solo admitted slowly, "Just once. I was told it belonged to one of Hitler's secret societies, that it was a Nazi symbol," he explained softly, stepping out of the shower stall, giving Duo the space to turn around and face him.

Duo frowned a little, feeling a small sting of recognition.

A Nazi symbol? What had that old woman said to him, way back when...

"Fairest be the Fatherland, and Just be it's true Ruler, Lord Grendel," he recited slowly, as if tasting the words as he said them. They tasted wrong, he knew he'd messed up. It was _close_ to what that black toothed old biddy used to scream at him, her yellowed fingernails digging into the flesh of his arm whenever she grabbed him if he accidentally ventured too close. Screaming about the 'Fatherland' and her precious Lord Grendel – Grundle – Grunkle? - and hissing malevolently into his ear about how he had a responsibility to him, whoever he was. She called him... something... in German, he thought it was. Possibly Russian, though given the 'Fatherland' talk it was more likely to be German. "Grendel? Grunkle? Whatever," he mused before waving a hand and dismissing it with a grin.

"Grindelwald," Solo corrected him softly, staring at his face intently.

There was something in his tone that made Duo pause and actually pay attention. They were both naked, and Solo apparently didn't care to notice, there was something brewing behind those cut glass eyes of his.

Whatever it was, Duo never found out. Solo turned away then and returned to the bench where he'd left his towel. The former pilot watched him go, feeling quite lost by the conversation, but knowing he wasn't going to be getting anything else out of him. He returned to washing his hair out, before joining Solo in getting dried off, and dressed. Though it was somewhat difficult to ignore both the small thrill he felt seeing Solo in his clothing, and the sour twist of concern when it only highlighted how small and _thin_ he was. Duo wasn't a tall guy, malnutrition had permanently stunted his growth, he'd probably never see the other side of 5'7", and he would be lucky to even reach that height to be honest. But he ate enough to put fat kids to shame, it packed on a decent amount of muscle even with his metabolism being such an unholy bitch on top of his _exceptionally_ active lifestyle. Solo was... himself as a kid but aged up. Skinny, small, like a shard of glass made human, and just as liable to cut you up if you were a fucking idiot while playing with him.

Solo sighed in satisfaction as he towelled his hair try, making Duo chuckle a little as he wrestled with a solid yard of wet hair. Yeah, that had been his reaction too once he'd washed off all that blood from his first terrorist fuck up. He cursed as his fingers found another knot and yanked his head to one side.

"Do... you want a hand?" Solo asked in concern, making Duo pause and look at him in confusion. "Your hair," he elaborated.

That was... unexpectedly sweet.

"Do you know what you're doing? 'cause, I gotta say, letting a guy who tried to wash his hair with handsoap near my luscious locks...?" he trailed off playfully, grinning as Solo rolled his eyes, flushing in embarrassment.

"Never mind," he grunted, making Duo laugh and lean forward, catching one of his stupidly baggy sleeves.

"I'm kidding, I'm kidding! C'mon back here and save me from myself," he laughed, slowly reeling the green eyed teenager back towards him.

Solo gave him the stink eye, but he eventually took the large flat square brush that Duo had left on the bench beside him. Duo sat facing away and felt – well nothing actually. Solo had gathered his hair up in one hand and was carefully teasing out the tips with the brush in quick firm movements. He'd done this before. Huh...

He rolled his shoulders again, feeling Solo slowly work his way up his hair until he could actually feel the brush on his scalp. It was surprising how gentle he actually was. And then he moved back down his hair, continuing to work the new tangles out before towelling it dry a second time, brushing it again, before he began to section it out. He shivered every time his now _cold_ wet hair brushed against his bare skin.

"Where did you learn how to do this?" Duo asked, incredulously because, seriously, Solo washed his hair with _handsoap_. He should not be able to handle a metre's worth of hair with that amount of care, _and_ know how to braid it properly afterwards.

He felt Solo's hands still a little on his scalp before it went back to sectioning. "My ex-girlfriend," he admitted, making something twist a little in Duo's stomach. "We played the same sports team at school. The games could get pretty intense and the armour we had to wear wasn't – after a match she often couldn't lift her arms up above her shoulders, and she didn't trust any of her brothers to help her deal with her hair afterwards. Ron had his own problems after a match, and the twins would have done something weird. All the other girls in our team would be in their dormitory having a second shower. And Hermione wasn't too great with hair stuff. She didn't much care for feminine beauty rituals. So she asked me to do it. I almost tore her hair out the first few times, but she was okay. Hermione coached me through braiding her hair enough times that I could probably do it in my sleep, but it always ends up wonky on the left side. Sorry," he added apologetically.

Duo laughed a little helplessly, not much he could say to that. Just be thankful that he wasn't Solo's first braiding experience if he almost tore the poor girl's hair out.

"She must have been very patient," he decided and heard Solo snort in bitter amusement.

"Not in the slightest," he corrected dryly as he tied off the end of Duo's new, slightly lopsided, braid. "She pretty much embodied the term ' _fiery red head_ '. She had six older brothers, and with the exception of Bill and Charlie, the oldest, they _all of them_ were terrified of her," he explained with a laugh, remembering her fondly, and the way the twins sent him a condolence card and spirited him away for a meeting. At the time he thought it was going to be the ' _if you hurt her we'll curse you into next week_ ', instead it ended up being a ' _if you ever need to hide come stay with us_ ' kind of thing. The twins apparently thought _Harry_ needed protecting from _Ginny_. "None of them gave me the 'you hurt our sister we'll hurt you', it was all 'if you need to hide you can crash at mine', and 'we'll say something nice at your funeral'."

Duo found himself chuckling despite himself, the girl he described sounded an awful lot like Hilde.

"Sounds like my ex," he admitted as he caught Solo's hand before he could pull away completely, tangling their fingers together. His hands were still very warm, which was good, the shower had done him good, now Duo just had to feed him up, replace some of that blood. Iron tablets, a nice steak, and a big bowl of icecream to get his blood sugars up as he was still trembling ever so slightly.

He smiled softly up at the dark haired teenager, before tugging him a little closer. He had been approaching this all wrong before now. Dealing with Solo when he was protective of someone or something, was like dealing with hell in a handbasket, you were going to get burnt if you mishandled him even the slightest. And while he felt a bit bad about essentially equating the older teenager to a grenade about to go off at the slightest wrong poke, it wasn't far from the truth. Keeping Solo away from this civil war wasn't going to help matters, it was going to drive him away and make him _actively_ avoid the pilot's attempts to help him. And that could get them both hurt.

"We need to talk," Duo told him gently, and immediately felt how the green eyed street rat tensed up and began to try and wriggle his fingers out of his grip.

"No we don't," Solo snapped, the faint bemused smile on his face dissolving into a defensive scowl. "There's nothing to talk _about,_ " he bit out further as he leaned away and took a step back, trying to walk away even as Duo kept hold of him.

The pilot sighed in aggravation, apparently Solo was _still_ going to fight him every step of the way even when pale faced and shaking from blood loss. He shifted his weight and hauled the street rat back, shifting a foot to trip him. Solo yelped as he sprawled backwards onto Duo's towel clad lap, bent backwards over his thighs as the brunet leaned over and caged him in by planting his left hand against the bench on his other side his wet braid sliding off a bare shoulder to dangle into the older teenager's lap.

"Yes. We _do_ ," Duo told him firmly, amethyst eyes narrowed intently. Solo always did have lovely eyes, he reminisced as startled emerald green eyes blinked once, and then narrowed into an angry scowl. Duo raised an eyebrow and leaned in even closer so they were almost nose to nose, "World War two wasn't won in a year, or by one person. I don't know what kind of Nazi civil war bullshit this secret society has dragged you into, but it isn't _just_ your responsibility to fight, and you shouldn't have to do it alone. Let me help, So, this isn't my first rumble."

The scowl was gone again, replaced by such a look of wide eyed vulnerability that it made something clench tightly in the pit of Duo's stomach.

Solo opened his mouth, paused, and then looked away, "You can't help," he muttered quietly, putting his feet under him to try and stand up. Duo sniffed in annoyance and then opened his legs. Solo yelped as his back slipped between the pilot's thighs, grabbing at both the bench and Duo to avoid folding in half and hitting the hard tile. "Duo!" he exclaimed in frustrated embarrassment.

The pilot gave him the most unimpressed expression he could muster, "Solo, pull your head _out_ of your ass." The expression of offended dignity that flashed across the seventeen year old's face was surprisingly gratifying, especially since he had never seen that bitchy expression before. It was cute. "I'm a Gundam Pilot, you're not going to find anyone better at guerilla warfare, or overthrowing stupidly stacked odds. I'm pretty sure I'm more qualified to help you than the two we currently have in protective custody, Solo. I may not know the particulars of your world, but I don't need them to put a bullet where it needs to go, or plant enough explosives under someone's house to destroy it, or drop a Mobile Suit on top of an enemy encampment. There's only five other people in this world that can say they're just as good, if not better, than me when it comes to this kind of stuff. You need help, and I'm offering it freely. Something a lot of very bad people in a lot of places around the world would quite literally _murder_ entire cities to get."

Solo's expression was sceptical and disbelieving, and entirely unimpressed.

"Can you defend against something that can kill you with just a sound?" he demanded shortly, shoving Duo out of his face. "Or how about something that literally paralyses you with your own worst memories, drowns you in a crippling mix of apathy, depression and grief, as if there will never be anything good in the world again, right before your entire consciousness is ripped apart, forever torn away never to return?" he continued mercilessly as he swung his knees off Duo's thigh and with a jerk of his head, one that threatened to break Duo's nose if he didn't move back, rolled free of him. "Or how about torture that never leaves a mark, that _burns_ every nerve ending in your body, and can drive you mad within minutes. Can you defend against that? Counter it? I would love to know, because over a thousand years of research and no one else has figured it out, so really, do tell me how you're going to be at all helpful in a place where the laws of reality and physics as you know them have gone completely out of the window?" Solo hissed, turning the tables and pushing Duo back now, one hand planted just below his neck as he got into the brunet's face. "Tell me, exactly, what it is that makes you so much more qualified to handle this war when fifty years and thousands of men and women both stronger, smarter, and faster than the both of us have failed?"

Fifty _years?_

"I'm a Gundam Pilot," he repeated flatly. As far as he was concerned, one of the five people who turned the world on its head, overthrew the Alliance, overthrew Oz, was far more of an ace in Solo's pocket than he was willing to acknowledge.

"You say that like it means something," Solo stated dismissively as he pulled away.

And Duo gaped.

His mouth snapped shut in horrified confusion. Did Solo not _know_ about the pilots, the Colony Wars, humanity's near-extinction event? Had the people who took him kept him so _ignorant_ of the world that he couldn't have returned to it even if he wanted to?

Duo jumped to his feet and caught Solo's hand, not even attempting to hide the distressed look on his face as the former streetrat whirled around angrily, "Solo, do you not know about the war?" he asked desperately.

Solo's eyebrow shot up and the angry expression melted into one of confusion, "Which one?" he asked suspiciously.

"The Colony War, two years ago," Duo said, but there was no recognition on Solo's face, "Two years ago, the Colonies sent soldiers to earth to destroy the Alliance. Oz turned around and used the chaos to their advantage to take hostile control of the planet, they declared war on the Colonies – they almost crashed one into the planet! Humanity was nearly wiped out! Solo, how can you not _know_?!" he exclaimed in confusion.

Solo scowled, "I had other things going on. Like my classmate getting murdered, a Government official trying to get me executed, and my godfather getting killed for a start," he retorted acidly before yanking his arm away. "If the military could have done something about the situation, they would have done so _before_ now. We aren't _that_ far removed," he snipped acidly.

Duo was still unable to wrap his brain around it though, "Relena Peacecraft, Miss Queen of the World, the whole Total Pacifism declarations around the world – none of it? You know none of it?" he blurted.

Solo stared at him for a long time, before he made a sound of disgust and shook his head, "Definitely left your brain up on L2," he muttered scornfully, Duo made a noise of dismay, reaching out for him again only to have the dark haired boy jerk away, "Leave me the hell alone!" he snarled.

"Solo – "

"Shall I make this easier?" Solo ground out, glaring at him over his shoulder, "I don't _want_ your help. Nor do I need it. And until you're willing to let me off this floating bathtub, I don't want to even look at your face," he growled before stalking out of the room.

Duo stared after him for a long time before sitting down heavily on the bench.

Fuck.

Solo didn't even know what a Gundam Pilot was, or even about the war. Most of everything Duo had told him since he took him likely as not made absolutely _no_ sense to him. No wonder he was so pissed off. He dragged a hand through his wet hair, shivering a little in the empty bathroom. He was so not equipped to deal with this. He needed help. Help from more emotionally adjusted people, normal-ish people who could actually help him. People that weren't Une, with her MPD, or Heero, Trowa, or Hilde. Well, Hilde might be an idea, but their break-up had been a bit... unamiable. He didn't know how she'd react to a call out of the blue and a cry for help from him. She'd probably give him a tongue lashing and then hang up.

No, Duo needed Quatre. Quatre, Wufei, and Sally. They would know how to help him. Relena too. As much as he may have disliked the girl for her quite frankly _stupid_ behaviour during the Colony Wars, she was a very empathetic person, and she could more than likely explain Solo's thought processes to him in a way he could understand. She was used to translating for Heero after all.

The brunet sighed and reached for his clothes, belatedly realising that he'd had that entire argument completely butt naked. He guessed his theorisation of Solo being a lot more prudish and shy now than when they were kids was now firmly out of the window.

 _ **000**_

 **Harry was perhaps the most UNCOOPERATIVE little bastard in this entire chapter. Like** **seriously** **. I get that's your default character mode at this point in time but for the love of fuck, you're supposed to be uncooperative in the plot, not to write. OTL;;**

 **Still. You'll all be pleased to know I actually have this fic planned out right to the epilogue. I've got multiple copies of said plans, so I hopefully shouldn't be losing any.**


	6. Chapter 6

_One glance was all it took. It may have been ten years, but Duo would know Solo anywhere, at any time. Now he just has to convince the stubborn wizard to let him help. Master of Death? Sorry Snake Face, the Shinigami has no master._ 02/HP, 04/03

 _ **000**_

 **Chapter Six**

Trying to find Solo when he didn't want to be found was like trying to find a needle in a hay stack. Even when Duo had the homefield advantage, and multiple people to help him, Solo was unsurprisingly still able to give him the slip. More than likely he had found some tiny knook somewhere and wedged himself in there far out of sight and reach of anyone bigger than himself – once upon a time ago Duo had been small enough to get into those spaces, now though... Well he may have only been a few inches taller, but he was about half a foot wider now and hadn't a hope in hell of squeezing into the kind of claustrophobic spaces the seventeen year old preferred in his youth.

So he didn't bother looking. He passed word out to the others on the ship to leave Solo alone, help him if he asked of course, but otherwise leave him to brood, keep him out of the dangerous areas and don't let him off the ship. Not that he could _get_ off the ship, Une's people had already collected Mister Murder Sword and his dead friends so there would be no smuggling upon their transport helicopters. Not to mention they were a day and a half out from the nearest port by ship. Still, there were still the Mobile Suits they had on board. Who knew if Solo was able to pilot them – Duo had figured it out easily enough without training, and So had been the one to teach him how to hack terminals and the like so he wouldn't put it past his former Leader to figure out the controls in short order.

The Peacemillion had two serviceable Leos they used in transportation and loading, one semi-trashed Ares that just needed some repair work and a paint job, and the unholy offpsring of Lightning and Death – actually what remained of the Cancer and three Pisces that Duo had wrecked in the early days of his Meteor mission. They'd dredged the parts up and put them back together to make Patrick, the ugliest mutant Cancer Mobile Suit at sea.

The Leos wouldn't get anyone very far out at sea, they were only watertight up to a certain depth and didn't carry air-processors or tanks. But at their currently location, the Ares and Patrick could get you to shore if you could get your head around the controls, what with most of the Ares being offline for repairs, and Patrick being god only knew what kind of jury-rigging monstrosity Howard had done there, did he let that Russian engineer at this? It looked like a Russian job. Either way, if the ship lost their mutant Cancer, their salvage operations were going to slow to a crawl, and Howard would have his ballsack for a hat. And the Ares was supposedly going to Auction once they'd repaired her.

Solo didn't go near them though. Duo had been kind of anticipating his desperate attempt to steal one of them, or one of the life-boats, so he'd decided to spend his morning repairing the Ares as 'rent' so to speak (and he's set a few of the boys to 'repair' the boats as well). He had to do something to pay Howard back for letting him crash here, and bring Solo on board for protection.

It ended up being a little disappointing, and boring, that he didn't even _try_ to sneak onto any of the Mobile Suits – and concerning. Just what was he up to?

Duo chewed his thumb-nail only to grimace and yank his hand away when he just tasted oil and grease. Gross! Note to self: Wash hands.

 _ **000**_

Harry did, indeed, wedge himself into a piece of machinery too small and tight for anyone but himself to get into, but not for the reasons that Duo seemed to think. He slept. He slept hard. The kind of slumber that only came with exhaustion and blood loss and upset – the only thing it lacked were the tears that would have at least allowed for some kind of emotional release. Instead, Harry woke up feeling three times worse than when he fell asleep, and now with a crick in his neck and a bruise just above his hipbone from where he had been leaning into a pipe.

He still felt weak and shaky as he rubbed some feeling back into his limbs, and just sat, and breathed, and thought. Actually engaged his brain and _thought_ about what had happened over the last few days, the things Duo had said, the mannerisms, the changes, the off-hand words here and there, the way people spoke to him here, the way they looked at him, how he acted back in that Cafe.

Gundam Pilot.

The way Duo spoke about it, this so called War the Colonies had with Earth, a Colony dropping to earth.

Hogwarts was completely removed from Muggle News outside what parents would tell their children, and that year it was more so than ever with Umbridge reading and censoring their mail. There was no means to get information in or out apart from the monitored Owl Post. There had been nothing in the Prophet beyond ' _Silly Muggles performing military exercises_ ' to explain the flashing lights anyone who looked up at night could see.

Harry... he had always avoided looking at any of the Colonies, even during his Astronomy lessons, purely because he didn't want to get homesick, didn't want to lay awake at night wanting to know what happened to the Gang, to Duo, to the nice old chef-lady that smuggled them food-waste from the swanky restaurants in the Pleasure Quarter. Didn't want to give himself away by being anything but what he should have been. At Hogwarts he had to be Harry. Solo had been erased, and it was only by accident his memories had straightened out when Madam Pomfrey had done what she did.

' _Bad people in a lot of places around the world would murder cities_ ' to get Duo's help. Duo who claimed to be the best, with only a few equals or betters when it came to fighting uneven odds, to guerilla warfare. Duo who shot Dolohov in cold blood, who didn't notice or seem to _care_ that he killed Thorfinn Rowle in the same fashion moments beforehand. Who spoke so casually of planting explosives under someone's house, of piloting Mobile Suits, of sniping, the same Duo that cried for three hours straight when they found a plastic bag of dead kittens, who chewed his nails to nubs in hunger but still turned around and gave his meagre portion of bread to one of the littler kids when times were lean, and people were mean. The same Duo who worried, and burbled about the police and the law the first time Solo took him out thieving.

It seemed... unlikely.

Duo had always been the _nice_ one. The sweet and kind one that took care of the gang while Solo kept them safe and out of trouble. Duo was... he was the _mum_ of the gang, yeah. If Harry had to give him any kind of role in their weird self-made family, it would have been the mother. He was far kinder and more supportive than Solo had been, he blunted Solo's sharper edges and pulled him down from his temper more times than he could remember, the number of times he had come back and found Duo either in a sleepy cuddle pile of the little kids, or trying to comfort one into stopping crying was also too many to count.

Gentle Duo talking casually about cold blooded murder was... jarring to say the least.

Shooting Dolohov was stunning. Rowle as well but, he had been in the middle of attacking them, he was clearly dangerous. Both he _and_ Duo had killed when they were kids in defence of the others. It was less surprising, or unsettling, than the brunet's talk of premeditated murder. Or the way he had just decided that Dolohov didn't deserve to be arrested or put in prison, just executed, murdered, for the crime of threatening Harry's wellbeing.

What had happened?

Why had he changed?

What was a Gundam Pilot, and why was it important?

Harry had a lot of research to do. He just needed a terminal with internet access in order to do it. Should be easy enough to find. Google probably wouldn't have all the answers, but it would have enough for him to figure out the rest. And what he didn't... he could always ask.

 _ **000**_

He owed Duo an apology.

After slowly crawling his way out of the heavy machinery he had hidden in, Harry stumbled his way through the ship until he found a small office/communications room with several terminals that looked somewhat hopeful. The room seemed somewhat disused, or at least hadn't been bothered with for a while. Either way, the screens lit up as they should have when he turned the machines on, the familiar lines of green coding running across the glass before it loaded up several more pages and finally ended on a password login screen. It didn't really slow him for long. Long enough to be _embarrassing_ though. It took far too much effort to dust off the cobwebs from his memories and figure out where his fingers went when breaking into the machine. He was so rusty, but thankfully this was hardly Alliance High Security.

Once he was in, he didn't bother with any of the ship's files or information, he didn't much care to be honest. Instead, he went online and looked up the year After Colony 195 – the year this all supposedly began, the year he started his Fifth Year at Hogwarts.

August thirteenth was the first recorded Gundam attack on an Alliance Military Base.

The day after his stupid Underage Magic Hearing at the Ministry of Magic.

Five attacks in five locations around the world. All of them performed by Gundams. Incredibly advanced, lightweight, durable, and agile mobile suits crafted from Gundanium; a Super Alloy mined from asteroids that could only be worked with in zero-atmosphere and gravity. Meaning that only the Colonies could even handle the material, or even knew how to with any kind of precision. There was no doubt that this 'Operation Meteor' was orchestrated by the Colonies, or at the very least, well funded agitators within the Colonies.

There were videos, grainy CCTV footage, satellite recordings, and mobile phone shots of full on battles and massacres. Entire platoons of Leos and Ares trying to fight just _one_ Gundam and getting unceremoniously mowed down. How many thousands had died? Bases destroyed without the suits even being deployed, sabotaged by the pilots before the people inside even knew they were under attack? How many deaths were never recorded because they happened at bases that should never have existed?

Then he found the picture.

Bare days before Sirius's death – a Gundam Pilot was captured by Oz soldiers out in space. Fourteen years old, brown hair in a waist length braid, a familiar face in pain. Duo was sentenced to execution by the very people he flew to earth in order to protect, and in less than eight hours he escaped.

How had none of this become public knowledge on earth, at Hogwarts?

Surely... surely someone would have noticed the White Fang attempting to crash an _entire_ _ **Colony**_ on earth, right? They weren't small structures. _Someone_ would have noticed.

And... they did – he remembered now.

A handful of snide comments at the back of the Prophet about muggle made meteor showers messing with the breeding habits of certain magical creatures and rituals. Idiots muggles messing with the sky. Didn't they know they were disturbing the natural forces?

None of them thought twice, or questioned what was happening – they trusted the Ministry or the Prophet to tell them if it was big or important. Never realising that the two were one in the same, and they were being kept ignorant.

Harry... needed a moment. He needed to think, to... come to terms... then get his balls together in order to apologise to Duo because... he had been an absolute shit to him. He had acted like Malfoy at his most arrogant, dismissed and insulted him, brushed him aside like trash, too wrapped up in his own problems, in fear and helplessness and frustration and exhaustion, he'd lashed out.

And...

He owed him an explanation of his own. At the very least.

Duo deserved to know what happened, and why Solo never came back for him.

Harry... could give him that much at least. It was _all_ he could give him. After everything Duo had been through, the last thing Harry wanted to do was drag him into another War. Maybe once he knew why Solo was dead, he would understand why, would understand that they were... they were nothing to each other anymore. _Needed_ to be nothing.

Shutting the terminal down, he slowly got to his feet, bones creaking and joints aching as the world spun dizzyingly around him. He rode it out with familiar patience, long used to the after-effects of blood loss, and waited for the weakness to pass before slipping out of the room in search of his – in search of Duo.

He wasn't in his room, though he'd left a note and a few pills in there, iron tablets. Harry stared at them tiredly for a while. Even now, after what happened, Duo still cared.

Fuck.

Way to twist the guilt knife.

He sighed as he dragged a hand through his hair. He was tired. He was _exhausted_.

He took the damn pills.

They tasted like ass and stuck painfully in his throat but he choked them down none the less. He looked briefly at the bed, still stripped of sheets and briefly considered just curling up and sleeping until Duo came to him but... He sighed and turned, stalking out of the room. He would sleep when he was finished. When he'd said his piece.

Harry had never considered himself shy, but given his behaviour the last few days, how he put everyone in danger, the act of approaching one of the crewmen and asking where Duo was ended up being more nerve wracking than he anticipated. The older man gave him a few directions, and added that he wasn't looking too well, perhaps he should go lay down or something? The concern was well meaning, and it was tempting to accept the unspoken admonishment, but he could only shake his head and thank him before following the directions he had been given. If he procrastinated now, it was likely he would end up procrastinating forever, and never apologising.

He ended up at the large hanger that he got stabbed in, it was a different looking place now that the doors were open all the way, allowing sunlight and the smell of the sea to waft in on a chill breeze carrying the familiar screams of seagulls. Powertools could be heard, metal clanking and clanging, the distant melodies of a radio, men and a scant few women with raised voices here and there – someone was shamelessly singing offkey Queen songs somewhere. Another was bellowing a question about whether anyone wanted a beer or a cup of tea, receiving multiple shouts of acceptance. One of them the voice retorted with a 'get off your lazy ass and make your own then' to.

Slowly, he made his way to the oddly crouched up black mobile suit that was laid out closest to the radio, the Ares Model. He remembered seeing magazines in Dudley's room with pictures of it on there. These were only on the drawing board of the Alliance Weapons Development Teams back when he had been Solo, he'd never seen a real one before. Only broken down Leos and old construction suits that had never actually been given model names outside serial numbers.

He couldn't see the braided boy anywhere, maybe he was in the cotpit?

Slowly, he scaled the mobile suit, leaping from armoured plate to armoured plate as he climbed, pausing a little when he realised he could hear Duo singing along to the radio – also offkey Queen. He huffed a small smile as he crawled up, and peered down through the open hatch as he sprawled on his front across the chest of the mobile suit.

Duo was facing away from him, fussing with something behind the pilot's chair as he cheerfully blasted out 'Don't Stop Me Now', occasionally pausing to do some airdrumming with the screwdriver and pen-light in his hands. He was dressed in a borrowed hair of overalls, goggles on his head, oil and grease almost everywhere save his hair.

"Don't stop me now! Don't stop me – yes, I'm having a good time! I don't wanna stop at aaaaalll!" the brunet warbled beginning to sway himself from side to side, "Ha da da da da da," he crooned swaying backwards. He must have caught sight of Harry from the corner of his eye because he jumped almost a foot in the air, dropped both his tools, smashed his head on the roof of the cotpit, swore, and when he whipped around, got his braid caught on the handle of the pilot controls.

Harry couldn't help it.

He burst out laughing.

"Solo!" Duo yelped once he realised it wasn't some assassin sneaking in to do something nefarious, or Wufei about to have a go at him for not filling in some kind of paperwork Duo didn't know existed or that he had to do (the dark hair threw him, after that fight, he hadn't expected Solo to look for him okay?). His former Gang Leader wheezed as he rolled over onto his back and curled into a ball, Duo could feel his face burning in a mixture of mortification and absolute delight – this was the first time he'd seen Solo laugh properly since before the Plagues, and on the one hand he was pleased that he caused it, on the other, he was embarrassed because he'd done something stupid and uncool and now Solo was laughing at him.

Fuck it.

He snatched up his tools, and stood up in the cotpit, looming over the smaller teenager still giggling in a ball as best he could with only his head poking out of the machine, "Not funny dude! You need to wear a bell or something!" he exclaimed in mock-offence as he waved the rescued screwdriver around. Solo just giggle snorted and rolled over to face the other direction as he pressed a hand over his mouth, as if trying to hold it in. He could feel his mouth beginning to waver and soften, "Right, that's it! You cheek! Come'ere!" he declared, hoisting himself half out in order to wrap an arm around Solo's waist and pull him into the cotpit with him.

The yelp of surprise was gratifying, less so were the hands that latched onto his jumpsuit like a startled cat. Good thing he didn't bruise easy, or he was pretty sure Solo's nails might have done some visible damage through the thick fabric as he (gently) playfully pushed the older teen into the pilot's seat. Which, given the way the Ares was laid out on its back, meant that Solo was sprawled on his back with his legs in the air, Duo grinned as he braced his hands on the handles eitherside of his head.

"Now you can't escape!" he exclaimed playfully.

Solo snorted, "I came looking for you, remember?" he pointed out, catching hold of his braid and giving it a light reprimanding tug, "Why would I want to escape now?"

Duo shrugged a shoulder and shifted so he was sat in front of him, using the seat of the chair as a perch, "You've only been trying to since I found you, so..." he shrugged a shoulder, watching him through his fringe as he grimaced a little in acceptance of the comment, and let Duo's hair go before shifting so he was sat with his back against the roof of the cotpit.

He wet his lips as he looked down at his hands, "Duo, I... I owe you an apology," he managed to say, taking the brunet by surprise. Solo rarely _ever_ apologised. It was one of the few faults of his that Duo never actually appreciated, even with the probably rose-tinted goggles he donned when he believed the older boy was dead. "I dismissed what you were saying because I didn't know better, but that's no excuse for how rude I was doing so. I'm sorry." He bowed his head, hands white-knuckled in his lap.

Duo flustered a little, "H-hey, that's okay, So, apology accepted," he tried to sooth, hands fluttering a little, unsure if he should be touching his friend and kind of wanting to but also not wanting to upset him when he genuinely seemed to be trying here? He didn't know what to do. An apologetic Solo was one he had never encountered before in his life. "What brought this about anyway?" he asked, not mentioning that trying to get him to apologise had been like pulling teeth when they were kids. He hadn't been expecting anything beyond Solo to try and ignore the fact their disagreement had ever happened to be honest.

The green eyed teenager fiddled with his fingers for a moment before looking up, "I didn't know. Any of that stuff. What you went through. And I just dismissed what you were saying, and that isn't fair to you. The year Operation Meteor began, we got a new teacher at School. The Senior Undersecretary to the Minister. She essentially cut us off. All our mail was screened, and she had an in with the local newspaper so all information going in and out of school was tightly controlled, and we were in the middle of bumfuck nowhere Scotland so it wasn't like parents could just drive up. I never knew about the War. No one did. All the flashes of light, the fighting that happened in space, it was passed off as Military exercises. No explanation was given." He shook his head as Duo stared at him in confused disbelief, "Electronics don't work because of the mountains, and the school being a castle so electricity was never actually installed; there was no verifying it ourselves. And then... The whole thing with dropping a Colony, that happened a week before my Godfather was murdered in front of me. When I came back from school in the summer, I wasn't really in the right kind of headspace to even notice anything. To even care."

Duo hugged him. Arms going tight around his waist and shoulders, and reeling him in firmly against him.

"That's why you didn't understand, you just straight up didn't know," he breathed in a mixture of relief and complete bewilderment. He knew some of the schools got pretty crazy around the time of the initial attacks, he'd been in a few of them after he and Heero split ways. Some just straight up told their students nothing was happening even while the Military base less than fifty miles away was still smouldering. With that in mind, it wasn't too unbelievable to think that Solo's school might have done the same, and if there were no electronics then there would be no internet rumours, and then the death of his godfather... Solo may have never cried, but he definitely took every death of their kids very badly, going quiet and hard whenever it happened.

He felt Solo nod against him. He was about to let go, remembering that Solo wasn't really big on physical contact, but he felt the tense line of the teenager's shoulders lessen, and even though he didn't return the hug, Duo felt his hand hook onto one of the folds of his jumpsuit's waist.

"Wait. Operation Meteor kicked off _before_ schools in England would have started," he realised, stiffening.

Solo nodded again, "I'd already been moved into a safehouse by the time it started. Things were... _are_ not – it – " he sighed, fighting to try and find the words even as Duo let him slip out of his arms and sit back, he kept his hands on the dark haired teen's knees as he sat down in front of him, almost in his lap in the cramped confines.

"You know what I can do, Duo. You saw it," Solo said quietly, looking up at him, "I'm not the only one. There's thousands of us. And, a lot of them are dangerous. Just _telling_ you this much is against our laws."

"Laws?" Duo blurted, eyes going wide as Solo nodded.

"There's enough of us that we have our own government. I told you about how they control people, that's against our Laws. To even _use_ that ability will get you life in prison. But the people in power right now? It's like a throw-back to the nazi wars. The SS run our government now, and their beloved Fuhrer has been trying to kill me since before we even met. Or at least..." he looked away then, "I don't know. There's a department dedicated to hiding us, to using an ability to erase memories. It's how they've stayed hidden. When I was dying of plague, I got picked up by the headmaster of the school I attended. Whether I really was, or just close enough, to the child of his students, I don't know. But he took me back to Earth Sphere, put me with the sister of the woman who was supposedly my mother. But there was too much of L2 in my memories, erasing that much information would have given me permanent brain-damage. So he just... painted over it with a kind of... confusion s-ability.

"When you cried over that bag of kittens, I remembered it as my cousin crying over an empty bag of muffins that he'd eaten.

"When we had to run from those older kids, it was my cousin and his gang chasing me in the school playground.

"When old Dagran tried to stab me in the head and I had to duck and run, it became my Aunt swinging a frying pan at me instead.

"Solo was _erased_. Painted over, forgotten. Everything that he was, got used as a frame for Harry. And I don't know who is real," he explained brokenly, drawing his knees up as he stared dully down at his bare dirty feet. "I wasn't supposed to remember. There was an incident in my Third Year, my godfather broke into the school, only everyone thought he was a murderer trying to kill me. When I spoke out, tried to correct them, they assumed I'd been hit with the confusion ability. The school nurse confirmed it, and she _fixed_ it. But... he never put me under that. So she ended up fixing what the _Headmaster_ did to me and – I couldn't – I didn't know what to think. No one around me seemed to remember that I wasn't supposed to be there, wasn't supposed to be Harry, that I'd ever been on L2. My Aunt and Uncle seemed to think I'd been living in their cupboard since I was a toddler, they had _no concept_ of my turning up out of the blue when I was nine!" he burst, digging his hands into his hair even as Duo dragged him into his lap, his expression twisted in sympathetic grief and pain as he wound his arms around him.

"Shit, Solo, I don't – you were _thirteen_?" he asked, his voice cracking in horror as he rubbed his hands up and down Solo's arms, trying to calm him down.

He nodded, "They erased Solo. They just... took me, and _erased_ me. I was... I was _terrified_ ," he finally admitted, feeling the brunet's grip tighten as he swallowed hard and squeezed his eyes shut. "They _needed_ a Boy Who Lived. Whether I am or I'm not, I _don't know_. But they're _not_ going to let me go! What if – what if they completely erase me next time?" he whispered, "What if they just, carve my mind up, get rid of the bits they don't need and paint over the rest until they get their _precious golden boy saviour?_ "

Harry had been pretending for so long, hiding this so tightly, so closely inside of himself, that now he had acknowledged it, recognised the terror he had been pushing to one side for four years, the very thing he feared more than dying, than his friends turning against him, than their dying. Being erased. Becoming a doll. Having everything that he was being ripped out. It would be like having his soul ripped out.

His Boggart was a Dementor. But not for the reason that everyone believed. Not because it was a symbol of fear itself. But because it was a symbol of what could _happen to him_. He feared the Kiss, feared losing his mind, himself, his memories.

He feared it so much, it felt like his bones were going to shake themselves out of his body.

But the thought of what they would do to Duo...

 _ **000**_

 **Chapter DONE.**

 **And we're back, for some reason Death's Door has been kicking my ass recently demanding some manner of attention and ta'dah! You get a chapter, an apology, and an** _ **explanation**_ **for what the hell happened to Solo/Harry.**


	7. Chapter 7

_One glance was all it took. It may have been ten years, but Duo would know Solo anywhere, at any time. Now he just has to convince the stubborn wizard to let him help. Master of Death? Sorry Snake Face, the Shinigami has no master._ 02/HP, 04/03

 _ **000**_

 **Chapter Seven**

Duo didn't know what to say, or do, as he held Solo in the semi-gloom of the Ares cotpit, the older teenager shaking himself to pieces as he blindly gripped Duo's jumpsuit in white knuckled hands, face pressed desperately into his shoulder as if to hide from the world. Four years. He had been living with the utter terror of being erased, being killed but still living, or having everything that he was become someone else, for _four years_. And Duo _knew_ Solo: He would have hidden that fear, would have pushed it to the side, refused to acknowledge, pretended to be this 'Harry Potter' these people needed until he wasn't sure where he began and Harry ended – all the while the fear would _chew_ at him inside, like a fucking cancerous growth.

Until he ended up like this. Unable to trust himself, his memories, and afraid of ever letting anyone know in case they decided they needed to start again – in case they did a _better_ job this time.

"...Why?" he asked, his voice cracking as he gripped Solo tighter.

"Because – because they needed a Boy Who Lived, I think," was the whispered reply.

"A what?"

He felt Solo shrug, his shaking slowing a little as he turned his head to rest his cheek against his shoulder, and leaned a little more into him, exhausted and almost limp. "That's what they called him, called me. The Boy Who Lived."

Duo sneered into his hair, "Dumb name. Whose idea was that, a drunk monkey?" he demanded caustically. Thankfully it had the intended affect of startling a brief snort of laughter from the boy in his lap, even if he did go almost immediately quiet and curl in on himself even more.

He sighed, "I didn't tell you the whole story, did I? There was... I suppose you could call him a terrorist at first, but it's a bit more complicated now. He was all for the Nazi superiority thing, unsurprising given he drew up in the blitz. He went around killing a lot of people twenty years ago. Tortured them. He wanted to wipe out those he considered inferior blood, people born without powers, and enslave those who were born with them to parents who didn't; the people with powers who married those without, helped them, or stood up for them, were called Blood Traitors, and targeted as well. He and his followers targeted them publicly, but truthfully, it was anyone in his way. Anyone who disagreed with him, fought him, or insulted him. He didn't particularly care about purity of blood, he was just using those beliefs to get power. My mother's parents didn't have powers, but she did. My father was a Blood Traitor. They were everything he hated, and they joined the resistance group that the Headmaster created, the Order. Them and their friends. Towards the end of the conflict, the headmaster held a job interview with a woman whose family were known to have powers of foresight. She told him that a baby would be born with the power to end the fighting, to parents who had fought and defied their deaths at the hands of the Dark Lord three times.

"Whether it was true or not at the time, who knows. But belief is powerful. They believed it. And... They decided it was me. My family went into hiding, but one of my father's friends betrayed us. He came on Halloween, and he killed them. My parents. And then he tried to kill me. But I survived the power he used. No one has _ever_ survived, not just when he decides they need to die, but that power in particular. If it touches you, there's no surviving, ever. Instant death. No take backs. No do overs." He tapped his forehead then, the cool lightning bolt on his forehead that Duo had always envied a little because it was so much cooler than the brand on the back of his neck. "Left me with this. It... marked me as his equal according to the divination teacher, and it means that until one of us kills the other, neither of us can die, or even properly live. So, no one but me can kill him. And Voldemort will just keep coming and coming until he wins."

That name again. The one whose followers had killed Solo's godfather when he was fifteen. Still...

"Bullshit," he grit out darkly. "So you're the only one who can kill him, nothing stops anyone else from maiming, crippling, arresting, or otherwise putting him into a vegetative state," he pointed out hotly. "You don't have to shoulder this whole thing alone just because some old crone said so, and everyone agreed!" Solo shook his head again and Duo growled a little, pushing him away and grabbing his face in both hands, lifting his head to look him in the eye. "You _don't_ have to do this, Solo. You _don't_. Just say the word and I'll take you away, no one will ever hurt you again, I swear."

Solo's face twisted in a mixture of pain, fondness, and heartbreaking resignation as he gently pulled Duo's hands down from his cheeks, "If I don't... then no one else will."

Duo opened his mouth to tell him _exactly_ what he thought of that bollocks when the gunfire started.

The two of them jolted in alarm, Solo shooting to his feet with Duo immediately behind him, the two of them poking their heads out of the cotpit as shouting tore through the air, gunfire, screaming, and the familiar hissing woosh of spellfire underneath it all.

"Fuck shit! I knew we shoulda changed location!" Duo cursed as he grabbed Solo around the waist and shoved him back down into the cotpit. "Hell no! We're staying in here!" he exclaimed as a bullet narrowly panged off the armoured chest piece a few feet away from his head, he grabbed the manual handles of the hatch and yanked them shut, throwing them into pitch black darkness.

"Duo! We can't just – ah!" The former street rat yelped as Duo threw himself into the pilot seat, and nearly sat on him in the process. The younger of the two blindly pulled Solo down into the footwell before reaching forward ahead of him and keying several buttons and twitches on the screen that came forward when the hatch closed. The cotpit lit up with a hum, and the screens came to life as Duo tapped several other keys and grasped the control handles on either side of the piloting seat, and pulled them back.

Solo yelped, grabbing the brunet's legs as the world tilted abruptly forward, threatening to smash his head onto the console in front of him.

"Hold tight, Solo," Duo told him, shifting one leg to swing over his shoulder and pin him against the chair.

"What are you doing?!" he yelped as with a few tugs on the handles, the world tipped forward again and then backwards. Duo grinned ferally, orchid coloured eyes narrowing as he bared his teeth in a smile that was the furthest thing from nice.

"Teaching these assholes what it means to fuck with the Shinigami of L2."

Whatever the Death Eaters expected, Harry didn't think it was a military grade aerial assault mobile suit to suddenly come to life amongst them. The Ares was the size of a giant, and a hundred times stronger. It's armour was thick, and normal spells did little more than ping off the metal or dissipate entirely. Even the Death Curse did little more than heat the metal.

There were nine Death Eaters visible on the screen, the first one was crushed under the Ares hand as Duo brought it down flat on top of them. Harry inhaled sharply, his grip tightening on Duo's leg as nausea rose hard and hot in his throat as the sound of bone breaking came through loud and clear on the audiofeed and _blood_ spurted out between mechanical fingers.

The second he snatched up in the other hand and crushed like an errant fruitfly.

Harry had to look away.

They may have been Death Eaters, but still... There was something just so _viscerally_ unpleasant, something so stomach churning, about being so overpowered and helpless, about so violent and painful a death. It felt... Merlin, his nightmares were going to be filled with the sound of crunching bone and cut off screams for years. His stomach rolled at the thought.

"Did that guy just _teleport_?" Duo squawked in horrified offence.

Harry risked looking up at the screens, spotting the remainder of the attacking witches and wizards making desperate retreats before they were snatched up by the mecha, turning on heel and apparating away from the scene before blood and viscera dripping fingers clawed them up.

"Apparating. Yes. It pretty much is teleporting," he admitted as the last of them tried to run, and got shot in the side of the head before they could make the jump, dropping like a marionette with its strings cut. He slumped against Duo's legs, horrified and sick, and exhausted.

"Can you do that too?" Duo asked warily.

He nodded, "Yeah... but you need a licence to do it legally. Sounds silly, worrying about the law when they're trying to kill me, but unlicensed Apparation is recorded and tracked. If you get a licence you're essentially white-listed in their system, it won't pick you up, and they can't track you when you do it," he explained slowly, watching with dull eyes as the pilot manoeuvred the Ares out of the hanger and onto the ship's main-deck. Probably to make cleaning it easier. "I was supposed to sit for my licence after my birthday but... Never got the chance. And if I show up to do it now, I'll get executed. Hermione was our designated driver on that front, so to speak. Her and possibly Ron. I don't know if he got his licence during the summer or not. They were old enough."

Duo hummed thoughtfully as he put the mecha into neutral and powered it down, the cotpit descending into darkness once again. He released the controls in order to bury his hands in Harry's hair, they weren't shaking, but they did twitch a little every now and again as he raked his fingers through black strands. "This is the second time they've found you," the former Gundam Pilot observed quietly in the dark.

Harry nodded, feeling more comfortable, braver, in the dark to let Duo touch him, "I know. I should go. I'm putting everyone here in danger. I need to meet up with Ron and Hermione, the sooner we finish this, the sooner..." he trailed off unsure of what to even say. He had never... considered life after Voldemort, "I can get on with my life," he decided. He would figure the rest of it out when he knew he had a chance of actually living long enough to _do_ something with his life.

Duo sighed, "Solo, you can't just leave, it's too dang – " the brunet began.

Anger flushed hot, and nauseatingly fast through his veins, enough to make his stomach turn as he yanked his hair free of the brunet's fingers. He twisted in place, shoving Duo backwards against the pilot's chair – forearm braced just below his throat, knee on the chair between his legs as he loomed over him in the darkness.

"I'm not made of fucking glass, Duo!" he snarled, "You _can't_ keep me _from_ this! I have to fight, because if I _don't_ , people are going to die!" he shouted, feeling Duo's hands come to rest on his hips, "Innocent people who have _nothing_ to do with what happened to me!"

"Solo – "

"No!" Harry snapped, moving his forearm away so he could cover Duo's mouth with a hand. "No," he repeated, gentler this time, "I made my choice, Duo. Last year. You can _try_ to stop me, but I don't want you to. You don't have the right to take that from me. No one does," he said firmly, sitting back and removing his hand so he was no longer hunched over the pilot so aggressively.

Duo caught his hand before he got too far, and squeezed it gently, "But you could die," he pointed out quietly.

"You could have died in Operation Meteor," the Gryffindor retorted coolly, he couldn't see Duo's facial expression in the dark but he felt his hands spasm against him. "I may have been forced _into_ this, but I intend to see it through. I _could_ have run. I could have hidden, and left them to fight their war on their own. But I _chose_ not to. I'm going to fight. Someone has to."

He felt the hot puff of Duo's breath on his neck before the pilot's head thumped down in defeat against his collarbone. It was easy, in the dark, to wrap his arms around his shoulders and head, to bury his fingers into the brunet's braid and hold him. Easier in the dark to let himself be Solo, if only for a little, for now.

"You're not going to give this up, are you?"

"Did you?"

He felt Duo huff a laugh and let go of his hand to wrap both arms around him in a hug, "Heh, no. I suppose you're right. I ain't got a leg to stand on."

Harry shifted, twisting himself sideways to sit on Duo's lap, guessing that he wasn't going to be released any time soon. Duo apparently got clingy when he got anxious over Solo's safety. The pilot buried his face into Harry's neck as the Gryffindor leaned against him and rested his chin on top of his head.

"No you don't. Now, take me to Ron and Hermione. We've been delayed long enough."

 _ **000**_

Colonel Une stared at Deathscythe's pilot through the screen of her communicator.

"Do you know what you're asking of me, oh-two?" she asked coldly.

He nodded solemnly, " _Yep. Wouldn't be talkin' to ya right now if I didn't know how serious this was. Mind control, memory erasure, memory modification, instant death, and somehow they're able to find us where-ever we are. I'm not lettin' Solo face this alone. So yeah. Besides, pretty sure the seized assets of the last eight boy-bands I sent your way could pay for it._ "

She refrained from grimacing, but it was a very near thing. He wasn't wrong. In fact, he was entirely correct about that last comment. He had financed the project three times over just by himself, especially since he passed recommendations to Howard up at Lunar Base who did the majority of the work at a reduced rate simply for the scientific curiosity of 'can we do it?' (the answer was yes. Yes they could).

" _Look, Une, I need the edge. Solo does too, though he won't admit it, and if we can keep the other two from dying, well, it's a win-win. I know you like the girl. I can see the recruitment papers on your desk,_ " he added with a sharp grin, and Une carefully did _not_ cover them like a schoolgirl caught writing love-letters in class.

"And you know for a fact they are for her?" she asked coolly, eyebrow raising delicately.

" _You'd ignore the comment if they weren't_ ," was the sassy, knowing, retort. Touché.

"My concern is the security logistics, oh-two. Not the loss of equipment, you left enough Gundanium scrappage strewn across the United Earth Sphere that people are still tripping over pieces at junk-shops that we could simply rebuild them. However, the New Oz would collectively have a coronary and believe us preparing for another war. It is publicity we could do without," she snipped.

" _No worries there. They don't do tech, Une. Their powers interfere with the electricity and short it out. They don't even have phones. Who would they tell? And how?_ "

"And you're somehow sure they won't destroy it?" she demanded sceptically, growing rapidly annoyed even though she damn well knew oh-two wasn't as stupid as he liked to pretend.

" _About that. Solo and I found somethin' pretty interesting when we were cleaning up after our last rodeo_ ," Duo announced, his face lighting up with boyish excitement and mischief. " _Howard kept some scrap from when Heero dissected Deathscythe to repair Wing back in the early days. Even though it wasn't hooked up to anything, it was actually functioning, all the lights were on and according to the diagnostic read-out all connected systems were operational. It died not long later, but Solo prodded it a little and it started working again, no power connectivity what so ever. The cores had been removed years ago. Gundanium apparently conducts whatever energy they have, and insulates against negative effects. So it'll be fine, hell, they could probably power it without the cores and save Howard a pretty penny_ ," he suggested brightly as if he hadn't just announced that there were humans out there capable of breaking all known laws of physics and biochemistry.

She sighed in aggravation, "You realise it will take time, right? We only commissioned for the Preventer Agents, and yourself for when your finished with your sabbatical."

" _Bull,_ " oh-two chirped casually, " _There's one for all Active Agents, former Gundam Pilots, and those known to us by name. Even_ Relena _has one assigned to her._ "

Une hissed furiously, "Have you been _hacking_ our systems again?!"

" _Nope. Howard keeps me updated, some of the more fiddly stuff I developed, his eyes ain't what they used to be, and I get bored easy_ ," the former pilot admitted casually. " _I know we have the parts for another three. I've already got Solo's measurements, though Sally's going to have to get his biometrics to send off. Knowing you, you've already had the other-two tested extensively since you found out they were a bit differenty._ "

"As 'differenty' as oh-four, yes," she grit out unhappily.

" _Oh cool. I had wondered_ ," was the blithe reply.

"You're making remarkably light of this, oh-two," Une observed through gritted teeth, and froze when he treated her to a beaming smile that made all the hair on the back of her neck stand straight with alarm.

" _Light? Oh no. Nothing of the sort, Une. But Solo was right about one thing, until we deal with this Voldemort fuck, there's no point in discussing anything else. Luckily this will be a much cleaner war than the last one – we have a clear target. And as Heero would say: Mission accepted_."

The transmission ended before she could open her mouth to reply, her skin crawling with the cold chill of realisation.

That was Shinigami's smile.

She reached for her personal communicator, "Get me Agent Winter, _**now!**_ "

 _ **000**_

 **And Harry finally manages to talk his way into freedom – I just don't think he expected Duo to come with him. Also, this has veered so much off from my original plans I don't even know what's going on anymore. Everyone's doing their own thing and I'm left holding several sheets of paper going "guys? GUYS?! YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO – oh come on. I'm short and fat here, I can't keep up with you bastards!"**

 **EDIT:** Just rewrote the scene in the cotpit between Duo and Solo, hopefully that's a little easier on the eyes now.


End file.
